"Virtuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fanny Kemble: he pointed out, in conversation, that he never heard of any lady who ever dreamed that she was younger than she really was. We retain in our dreams even the identity of our age. It has been said—we think by Sir Thomas Browne—that some persons of virtuous and honorable principles will commit, as they fancy, actions in their dreams which they would shudder at in their waking moments; but we can not believe that the identity of moral goodness can be so perverted in the dreaming state. We can, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... which gave form to the aspirations and purposes of Peter Cooper. As an apprentice, he resolved to do something for the benefit of apprentices—to found some institution which should supplement the deficiencies of early education, furnishing to virtuous, industrious, and ambitious youths the means of progress, and attracting the thoughtless or indolent into the same ascending road. How this conception came to be both modified and realized will be seen in later pages. At this point it is sufficient to note that ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... loathsome than even the devil himself. The devil rebelled because he could not brook subjection to the Son of God, a failing which was noble compared with treachery to the Son of man. The hatred of Judas is not altogether virtuous. We compound thereby for our neglect of Jesus and His precepts: it is easier to establish our Christianity by cursing the wretched servant than by following his Master. The heinousness also of the crime in Gethsemane ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... no, she awoke—she returned to life, only to curse that life which was now covered with degradation. Alas! she had no one to whom she could fly, and under whose fostering kindness she might hide her shame; she had no refuge left—none but death, the last shelter of virtuous woman betrayed. She spurned with indignant pride the glittering offers of the miscreant who wrought her ruin. She recoiled with abhorrence from his loathsome caresses; cursed in bitter agony his unmanly deed, and brooded over her misfortune, until the loss of her reason followed the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... 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 ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... of his liberty has a tendency to rob his soul of every spring to virtuous actions; and were slaves to become fiends, the wonder could not be great. 'Nothing more assimulates a man to a beast,' says the learned Montesquieu, 'than being among freemen, himself a slave; for slavery clogs ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... corruption; for by that time he was not nearly so much in love with Delphine. What would you have? he felt the prick in his heart, poor fellow. But he was a man of noble descent and profound depravity, whereas we are virtuous artists. So Rastignac meant to enrich Delphine; he was a poor man, she a rich woman. Would you believe it?—he succeeded. Rastignac, who might have fought at need, like Jarnac, went over to the opinion of Henri II. on the strength of his great maxim, 'There is ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... recover his health, but without success better than before. He brought back a face upon which his state was still more plainly printed than at first. Madame d'Uzes, only daughter of the Prince de Monaco, died of this disease. She was a woman of merit—very virtuous and unhappy—who merited a better fate. M. d'Uzes was an obscure man, who frequented the lowest society, and suffered less from its effects than his wife, who was much pitied and regretted. Her children perished of the same disease, and she ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... sorry, but I haven't a penny about me. I'll make it right to-morrow. Good-day, my young friend. Be virtuous and you ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... superior 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 fear ... ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... into a penal settlement, and the chief residents are the convicts and their guards. It is only to be hoped that the result of their labours may make it a fitter place for the habitation of more virtuous people. We ran into the harbour, which is nearly land-locked, and dropped our anchor. It was a curious feeling, coming suddenly from the storm-tossed ocean, to find ourselves surrounded by land, with lofty mountains rising up from the shore close to us. We all agreed that we were ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... an anxiety expressed everywhere, that the language of controversy might cease; and that the cultivation of letters, which more than a century of civil strife had interrupted, might again occupy men's minds, and soften and humanize their spirits. But Ferdinand had no part in this virtuous longing. Whether it was the influence of his brother, the Emperor Charles V., or his own innate hatred of the institutions of Bohemia, that swayed him, is a question not easily answered, if, indeed, it were worth asking,—but it is not. The promises ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... even his politenesses to Madame Lebrun; and we shall hear in every one of these luxurious enjoyments the sharpening of the guillotine axe. Madame Lebrun the wife, Madame Lebrun the mother, and Mademoiselle the sister, are all in the same story. The old lady, whose virtuous indignation towers above her sex, has no patience for the insufferable tyrant who won't let his wife see her best friends, ("qui vouloit l'empecher de voir ses bons amis.") They trump up all manner of stories against him; and even maintain, in their first paper of accusation, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... of scholars, but upon the meadow and the corn-field, the farm-house and the cottage, is written, by the everlasting finger of God—Holiness unto the Lord? That it is all blessed in His sight; that the simple dwellers in villages, the simple tillers of the ground, can be as godly and as pious, as virtuous and as high-minded, as those who have nought to do but to serve God in the offices of religion? Is it not an honour and a comfort, to such as us, to find one whole book of the Holy Bible occupied by the simplest story of the fortunes of a yeoman's family, ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... popular term for virtuous friends who perfectly love each other in all purity: it has also a mystic meaning. Some translate it "Brethren of Sincerity," and hold this brotherhood to be Moslem Freemasons, a mere fancy (see the Mesnevi of Mr. Redhouse, Trubner 1881). There is a well-known Hindustani ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean, dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named the Aethiopians. The gods favored them so highly that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share their sacrifices ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... there were great crowds, and some might be offended at my presence; but the Kadee declared 'by Him who separated us' that if any such ignorant persons were present it was high time they learnt better, and said that it was by no means unlawful for virtuous Christians, and such as neither hated nor scorned the Muslimeen, to profit by, or share in their prayers, and that I should sit before the Sheykh's tomb with him and the Mufti; and that du reste, they wished to give thanks ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... fine," thought Durtal, "but when it comes to putting the advice into practice it is quite another thing. Are not these mere old women's remedies, precious ointments, quack medicines, for which the pious and virtuous have a weakness?" ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... repentant Charley had been discovered making love to his wife's dressmaker, a pretty French girl whom Jane had engaged for her spring sewing because she had more "style" than had fallen to the austerely virtuous lot of the Carr's regular seamstress, Miss Folly Hatch. "I might have known she was too pretty to be good," moaned Jane, while Mrs. Carr, in her willow rocking-chair by the window, wiped her reddened eyelids on the strip of ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect reward in heaven for that? Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too! No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it—you'll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... proportion of his property which a married man may bestow upon his concubine, while at the same time adultery is not an indictable offence. Another of her Judges has said from the bench, "We often see men of excellent characters unfortunate in their marriages, and virtuous women abandoned or driven away houseless by their husbands, who would be doomed to celibacy and solitude if they did not form connections which the law does not allow, and who make ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... way to go unto these aforesaid happy islands, the Moluccas, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a learned and valiant knight, discourseth of at large in his new "Passage to Cathay." The enterprise of itself being virtuous, the fact must doubtless deserve high praise, and whensoever it shall be finished the fruits thereof cannot be small; where virtue is guide, there is fame a follower, and fortune a companion. But the way is dangerous, the passage doubtful, the voyage not thoroughly known, and therefore ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... given expression to this virtuous resolution as he was leaving the lawyer's door, he found himself standing face ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... by his bedside writing materials chosen with extra care, and before he went to bed he looked out of window at the stars, and filled his lungs with the clean, frozen, virtuous air of Bloomsbury, and whispered a most passionate invocation to Martia, and implored her forgiveness, and went to sleep hugging the thought of her to his manly breast, now widowed for quite a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the individual who has paramount influence over a sick person, the respectable Madame Hochon, moved by religious principle, and Agathe, so gentle and pious, all representing to her the advantages of a marriage with Rouget. And when, attracted by the idea of becoming Madame Rouget, a dignified and virtuous bourgeoisie, she grew eager to recover, so that the marriage might speedily be celebrated, it was not difficult to make her understand that she would not be allowed to enter the family of the Rougets if she intended to turn ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the clergy that this world is a kind of school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffering can men become pure, strong, virtuous and grand. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Just as man assents to first principles, by the natural light of his intellect, so does a virtuous man, by the habit of virtue, judge aright of things concerning that virtue; and in this way, by the light of faith which God bestows on him, a man assents to matters of faith and not to those which are against faith. Consequently "there is no" danger or "condemnation ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... he may be, but dishonour'd never! He was a fearless soldier and a virtuous scholar. But where is ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... their exploiters were a lot of heartless villains, so that made the slaves good and virtuous innocents. That was your real, fundamental, mistake. You know, Obray, the downtrodden and long-suffering proletariat aren't at all good or innocent or virtuous. They are just incompetent; they lack the abilities necessary ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... leads us to listen with a certain measure of scepticism to the assurances of those who say that right conduct will survive though religion be surrendered. It has perhaps not been generally observed that just as the virtuous agnostic is generally the child of Christian parents, so by a seeming irony he is {179} often found to be the father of Christian children: there is hardly a genuine case on record where "free-thought," Agnosticism, Rationalism, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... retribution, strikingly illustrating how God laughs the sinner to scorn, and how the most cunningly devised schemes are frustrated, when He permits the light of His avenging justice to expose them in their enormity. On the contrary, it forcibly proves that virtuous actions, sooner or later, bear abundant fruit even in this world. If a man's sins bring upon his head a weight of woe, so do his good deeds draw down the benedictions of heaven and serve as a shield to protect ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... they're republican as well as utterly decayed,' said Roland, 'I give them up; let them die virtuous.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rider, a bowl without a flower, a theater without a play. . . . And to me that night of Beltane, it was as clear as white flames that Nettie, and Nettie alone, roused those harmonies in me. And she had gone! I had sent her from me; I knew not whither she had gone. I had in my first virtuous foolishness cut her out ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... should not be attainable without earnest and consistent 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 ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For the young man cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal, and anything that he receives into his mind at that age is apt to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore the tales which they first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.' " ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... gave expression to this pious homily in a tone of virtuous reproach against the world at large, and as if he were a very much maligned and ill-used gentleman. He touched the bell overhead as he spoke, and, putting his mouth to the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to what ignominies I have been exposed, what traps have been set for me, and how it has happened to me sometimes to owe my safety to mere physical force? And yet I do not complain, since through it all I have been able to retain the respect of myself, and to remain virtuous ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... all I admired this fine old man, who with moral principles and simple laws, had governed them for so many years. On the other hand, what an example that was of free men not being able to live without choosing a chief, and bringing one another back to the practice of virtuous actions! ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... by their fondness for paradox, they reduce all offences to the same dead level. It is, in their eyes, as impious to beat a slave as to beat a parent: because, as they say, "nothing can be more virtuous than virtue,—nothing more vicious than vice". And lastly, this stubbornness of opinion affects their personal character. They too often degenerate into austere critics and bitter partisans, and go far to banish from among us ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... The virtuous monk was quite startled when the cardinal, with pale and trembling lips, informed him that he had accumulated a fortune of over forty millions of francs—$8,000,000. Mazarin allowed that he considered it a sin that he had by such means ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... of the case. I found myself hard bested from the very beginning. I knew that I was expected to marry her. I knew, too, that it was a suitable match in every way. But then every girl is, to some extent, accomplished, pious, virtuous, and intelligent. I believe sometimes that my apparent indifference towards Agnes arises from the fact that I respect her—if anything—too much. She seems too remote—that is the word—for the ordinary wear and tear of domesticity. Other men—who might be called ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... "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 scoffed at on the other side ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... system under which we live in the brief catalogue I have made for you, my friend. If it were necessary, I could compile an immense volume of authentic evidence to overwhelm you with a sense of the awful failure of our civilization to produce a free, united, healthy, happy and virtuous people, which I conceive to be the goal toward which all good and wise men should aspire. But it is dreary and unpleasant work recounting evil conditions; constantly looking at the sores of society is a ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... conveyed this idea. As regards the rest of the characters, Mr. Terriss's Squire Thornhill was an admirable picture of a fascinating young rake. Indeed, it was so fascinating that the moral equilibrium of the audience was quite disturbed, and nobody seemed to care very much for the virtuous Mr. Burchell. I was not sorry to see this triumph of the artistic over the ethical sympathy. Perfect heroes are the monsters of melodramas, and have no place in dramatic art. Life possibly contains them, but Parnassus often rejects what ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... centurion, Lucius Virginius by name, an upright man and of good credit both at home and abroad. This Virginius had a daughter, Virginia, a very fair and virtuous maiden, whom he had espoused to a certain Icilius that had once been a tribune of the Commons. On this maiden Appius Claudius, the chief of the Ten, sought to lay hands, and for this end gave commandment to one Marcus Claudius, who was one of the clients of his house, ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... like 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 ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... regret that the pressure of circumstances forbids my taking formal leave of you. But at an early hour this morning, when you will still be stretched upon your virtuous pallets, Mrs. Cromwell and I set off for the port of Soller. We shall have our morning coffee at Pollensa, and eat our lunch at the convent of Nuestra Senora del Lluch. And there we shall leave ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... stood, would ('tis true) have saved them from the Sentence of Condemnation. Take it again the other way: Adam's Fall could make no Alteration in the State of those who, without it, would have been Sinners; such as would have proved virtuous and happy, are hereby made miserable. These are, or must have been the Consequences of such a Covenant strictly observed; and the Wisdom and Equity of all Covenants must be judged of, by comparing the good and evil Consequences, necessarily resulting from them. All the Good such ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word, are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... 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 ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... literature. The art that addresses itself to the eye had likewise its share of this coarseness. Think of the sculptures on the capitals and the modillions of churches, and the crude frankness of certain painted windows of the fifteenth century. Queen Anne was, without any doubt, one of the most virtuous women in the world. Yet she used to go up the staircase of her chateau at Blois, and her eyes were not offended at seeing at the foot of a bracket a not very decent carving of a monk and a nun. Neither did she tear out ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... pretend that one sleeps. If one does this not, one is carried away by the troop, and struck down in a fainting-fit in a place far distant from where one was. People often, after this, are low-spirited and melancholy all their days. But the virtuous, who throw themselves down immediately on the approach of the troop, suffer nothing, excepting that every one of the airy company spits upon him in passing; when the troop has passed by, then one spits again, and the affair has then ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... fancy. But in all sorts of magnificence, debauchery, and voluptuous inventions of effeminacy and expense, we do, in truth, all we can to parallel them; for our wills are as corrupt as theirs: but we want ability to equal them. Our force is no more able to reach them in their vicious, than in their virtuous, qualities, for both the one and the other proceeded from a vigour of soul which was without comparison greater in them than in us; and souls, by how much the weaker they are, by so much have they less power to do either very well or ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Eastlake streets on Saturday night—except those lost in the monomania of a dream, didn't want to work, they didn't even wish to be virtuous. They turned continually to the bypaths of pleasure, that self-delusion and forgetfulness of drink. Yes, released from the tyrannies of poverty, they flung themselves into a swift spending. The poor were more securely married than the rich, the dull than the imaginative—married, he ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her, "how dost thou rise every moment in my esteem. Follow the impulse of thy generous heart, my Emily. Let prudes and fools censure if they dare, and blame a sensibility they never felt; I will exultingly tell them that the heart that is truly virtuous is ever inclined to pity and forgive ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... 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 ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... describing the amiable character of a Christian, let it be remarked also, that he meets with various difficulties, and is exposed to not a few misrepresentations, His virtuous singularity, for instance, is considered by some, who do not understand his principles, to be unnecessary preciseness, and is thought to arise from a conceited or disobliging spirit. His courage in reproving ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... "futuristic" because of the unusual boldness and pithiness of its style, the absence of a general tonality, the independence of the orchestral voices, that Sibelius's gift attains absolute expression. There are certain works that are touchstones, and make apparent what is original and virtuous in all the rest of the labors of their creator, and give his personality a unique and irrefragable position. The Fourth Symphony of Sibelius is such a composition. It is a very synthesis of all his work, the reduction to its simplest and most positive terms of a thing that has been in ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... a future life, accompanied with rewards and punishments, has been regarded for a great number of ages as the most powerful, or even as the only motive capable of coercing the passions of man; as the sole means that can oblige him to be virtuous: by degrees, this doctrine has become the basis of almost all religions and political systems, so much so, that at this day it is said, this prejudice cannot be attacked without absolutely rending asunder ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... use of the symbol in other places, must be a representative of the church. As the harlot on a scarlet-colored beast (17:3), is a symbol of a corrupt and apostate church, so a virtuous woman is a chosen ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... time its bugbear. One life can only be devoted to one cause. Monarchy and republicanism had the same esteem, the same wrongs in his mind, and he served for and against both. He died without having seen either of them triumphant, but he died virtuous and popular. He had, beside his private virtues, a public virtue, which will ever be a pardon to his faults, and immortality to his name; he had before all, more than all, and after all, the feeling, constancy, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... up him that left untold The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball and of Algersife, And who had Canace to wife, That own'd the virtuous ring and glass, And of the wondrous horse of brass, On which the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... to her virtuous couch, remembering that she was to visit infant schools with a great educational ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... appealing to Rome, Catherine withdrew. Touched by her appeal, Henry burst out in her praise. "She is, my Lords," he said, "as true, as obedient, and as conformable a wife, as I could, in my phantasy, wish or desire. She hath all the virtuous qualities that ought to be in a woman of her dignity, or in any other of baser estate."[624] (p. 222) But these qualities had nothing to do with the pitiless forms of law. The legate, overruled her protest, refused her appeal, and summoned her ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Hermit of pure disposition, abstemious and virtuous, had made his cell in one of the environs of Baghdad, and passed his morning and evening hours in the worship of the All-wise King, and by these means had shaken his skirt clear from the dust of worldly affairs. He had bowed his head in the corner of contentment under the collar of freedom ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... to give big prices for every little service. But they run no risk of being caught by the snare they set for others. Prince and people, the Monegasques are like the wise old bartender, who said in a tone of virtuous ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... entertaining specials he'd turned out on unfaithful husbands, the snappy columns on unhappy wives, careless of the cost of his sensation in blood and tears! And now they'd write him up—Naylor would attend to that editorial himself, and do it in his most virtuous style—and brand him as a fakir, a ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... his fierce desire to destroy her father was at last apparent. To destroy Doctor West was his part in the conspiracy. As for his rabid advocacy of municipal ownership, and all his fine talk about the city's betterment, that was mere sham—merely the virtuous front behind which he could work out his purpose unsuspected. No one could quote the scripture of civic improvement more loudly than the civic despoiler. She always had distrusted him. Now she knew him. Many a time through the night ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... tired, Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it is not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... this Old England! "Of all the enviable things England has," he writes, "I envy it most its people.... Why should this little island enjoy in almost every neighborhood more sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds, than we can collect in ranging one hundred leagues of our vast forests?" What a proper place for a philosopher to spin out the remnant of his days! The idea had occurred to him; he was persistently urged by his friend William Strahan to carry ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... distasteful to Napoleon. Thus he sat, dejection and despair stamped on his homely face; haughty, yet a suppliant; a king, yet only by sufferance. Fortunately his queen, Louisa, the woman of her day, beautiful, virtuous, and wise, came finally to his support. Her hopes were destined to be rudely shattered, and her charm was to be used in vain; but it was her presence alone which gave any ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... into the 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 ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... than that they had undertaken. They voluntarily offered their money, their labour, and time, for promoting what appeared to them the good of others, leaving themselves nothing for reward but the inexpressible satisfaction arising from virtuous actions. Among other great ends they had also in view the conversion and civilization of Indian savages. If their public regulations were afterwards found improper and impracticable; if their plan of settlement proved too narrow and circumscribed; praise, nevertheless, is due to them. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... young lady, lovely to the sight, of virtuous character, and amiable disposition, engaged to an officer of your army, was, with other women and children, taken out of a house near fort Edward, carried into the woods, and there scalped and mangled in a most shocking manner. Two parents with their six children, were all treated with the same ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to which the gentlemen of his time aspired, and on this model he fashioned his hero. He observes that "the general end, therefore, of all the books is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in gentle and virtuous discipline." And again, "I labor to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was King, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve moral virtues." And as we read the gorgeous description of the prince, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Cuthbert again, of hearing his story and telling her own, had been considerable. And now to be confronted by a furious father, and accused of having broken her solemn pledge, and of having met her lover at an hour of the night when no virtuous maiden would dream of such a tryst, was more than she could bear. Slipping to her knees, she laid her hand upon her father's robe, and clutching hold of it, as if for support, she gasped out the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... such a relation to your Majesty might have made it more complete by saying what is so true, that there are in these orders (in which also there are those of every sort, as in all countries), religious so virtuous and exemplary that if laymen did not divert and engage them in their affairs, they would, I believe, work miracles. But they are so importuned that many cannot stay in their cells; nor do those who go to their cells to disturb ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... have also added, that there is a species of depravity in endeavouring by ludicrous mummery to efface the salutary effects of pathetic, virtuous, and vigorous sentiments; that it is sporting with the sympathies of our nature, repugnant to correct taste, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... governments 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 ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... grace. "Believe me, I have frequently desired to see that paragon of all the virtues whose dutiful respect our revered uncle rewarded with the proverbial shilling. Egad!" he went on, examining me through his glass with a great show of interest, "had you been any other than that same virtuous Cousin Peter whose graces and perfections were forever being thrown at my head, I could have sympathized with you, positively —if only on account of that most obnoxious coat and belcher, and the grime and sootiness of things in general. Poof!" he exclaimed, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... exhalations, as, for instance, the sun by excessive heat"; alchemy, as he interpreted it, meant the improvement of natural substances for man's benefit; while virtue in the physician was necessary since "only the virtuous are permitted to penetrate into the innermost nature of man and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... an universal monarch in another sense than any other mortal has yet been, and the eastern style would be literally applicable to him, "that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him." Now Bishop Butler supposes this would be the effect, where the individuals of a nation were perfectly virtuous. But I ask much less for my hypothesis. I only ask that the ruling members of the cabinet of any great nation (and perhaps these would only amount to three or four) should consist of real Christians, or of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... why shouldn't I go?—just tell me! It is being given by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the big room at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuous young man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn to think of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'll let me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now he doesn't ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of Sicily, and his queen, the beautiful and virtuous Hermione, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and to present to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 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 ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... little shopkeeper, who reckons up his profits every Saturday night, and sees his business growing. But you must begin early; you must learn money-making like anything else. If I had made money, Piers, I should be at this moment the most virtuous and meritorious citizen ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... blest? despise low joys, low gains, Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains, Be virtuous, and be ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... creatures in the world; and she did now, throughout her whole trial, discover herself to be such an one. Yet when she was asked what she had to say for herself, her chief plea was, 'that she had led a most virtuous and ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... just reward for all thy crimes;" and instantly plunged his sword into the giant's body. The huge monster gave a groan, and yielded up his life into the hands of the victorious Jack the Giant-Killer, whilst the noble knight and the virtuous lady were both joyful spectators of his sudden death. They not only returned Jack hearty thanks for their deliverance, but also invited him to their house, to refresh himself after his dreadful encounter, as likewise to receive a reward ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... 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, when gain or ardent passion urged ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... the dreadful occurrence by which I had suffered to the bareness of an abstract narrative. A man is desperately in love with the wife of one of his intimate friends, a woman whom he knows to be absolutely, spotlessly virtuous; he knows, he feels, that if she were free she would love him; but that, not being free, she will never, never be his. This man is of the temperament which makes criminals, his passions are violent in the extreme, he has no ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... and, in the second case, the object of adoration is reduced to a mere verbal artifice, depending on vulgar custom or on the caprice of men. If the heart of the Virgin is adored under a supposition that it is the centre of the most pure and virtuous sentiments, why has there not been adoration of her head, which is supposed to be nourished with noble and elevated thoughts? Why not her womb, in which lay the Saviour of the world? Why not her hands, which nursed him, and performed all those various acts ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... other idea than that of being loved for himself. Upon this matter, his ethical notions being in agreement with his vanity, he was completely incorrigible. That this should be so in the case of his virtuous and legal connection he was perfectly certain. He had grown older, fatter, heavier, in the belief that he lacked no fascination for being loved for his own sake. When he saw Mrs Verloc starting to walk out of the kitchen without a ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... insist on taking at least one vow," said Emilia, with a virtuous air. She stopped and started. "But what in the world am I to say about you, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... this prospect of future good be the preparation for another existence I know not; or whether that it is merely that we, as workmen in God's vineyard, must lend a hand to smooth the way for our posterity. If it indeed be that; if the efforts of the virtuous now, are to make the future inhabitants of this fair world more happy; if the labours of those who cast aside selfishness, and try to know the truth of things, are to free the men of ages, now far distant but which will one day come, ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... said Abel; "I'm sorry for you." And indeed he was. "You're a good, pious, virtuous girl—just the sort of a girl a man ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... generally 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 wife ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... they had done, and made use of their example in his teaching. Aristides was just before Socrates defined justice; Leonidas died for his country before Socrates declared that patriotism was a virtue; Sparta was sober before Socrates extolled sobriety; there were plenty of virtuous men in Greece before he defined virtue. But among the men of his own time where did Jesus find that pure and lofty morality of which he is both the teacher and pattern? [Footnote: Cf. in the Sermon on the Mount the parallel he himself ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... small board tablet to "Confucius, the teacher of ten thousand ages" with those of his most faithful and worthy disciples. In the court on each side are rows of buildings—that on the east containing the tablets of seventy-eight virtuous men; that on the west the tablets of fifty-four learned men; eighty-six of these were pupils of the Sage, while the remainder were men who accepted his teachings. No Taoists, however learned; no Buddhists, however pure; no original thinkers, however ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... few have sufficient force in themselves to effectually resist these evils. It must be remembered that the wholesome and normal restraints of virtuous female society are wholly removed from us. And from what we daily see around us we are convinced that a colony of men only, however virtuous or moral, would in a short time run into utter barbarism. No candid observer can doubt the teaching of the old ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... loved, but adored and worshipped her, as though I knew no other deity on earth. Her parents and relations were aware of my affection for her, and never showed signs of disapproving it, for they knew that my designs were honourable and virtuous; and I know that they often said as much to Leonisa, in order to dispose her to receive me as her betrothed; but she had set her heart on Cornelio, the son of Ascanio Rotulo, whom you well know—a spruce young gallant, point-de-vice in his attire, with white hands, curly locks, mellifluous voice, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pair of blunt scissors, which he carried habitually in his pocket. What should he do? Should he fly? But he was never a good runner, being apt to find himself scant o' breath, like Hamlet, after violent exercise. His demeanor on the occasion, did credit to his sense of his own virtuous conduct and his self-possession. He put his hand out, while yet at a considerable distance, and marched up towards Clement, smiling with all the native amiability which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... on, Whose corpse might seem a constellation. O, had he died of old, how great a strife Had been who from his death should draw their life! Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er Seneca, Cato, Numa, Caesar, were, Learned, virtuous, pious, great, and have by this An universal metempsychosis! Must all these aged sires in one funeral Expire? all die in one so ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... you've told, We did enjoy great mirth; but now, ah me! Our joyful song's turned to an elegie. A virtuous lady, not long since a bride, Was to a hopeful plant by marriage tied, And brought home hither. We did all rejoice Even for her sake. But presently her voice Was turned to mourning for that little time That she'd enjoy: she waned in her prime, For Atropos, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... cries of virtuous indignation, Fisher minor was hauled in, and his obstructor, by the same coup de main, excluded. Fisher minor might have had his head turned by this triumphal entry, had he not recognised in the ejected Modern boy the gentleman to whom he had lent ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... the world has been the great cause of injustice and oppression. The voice of revolution here would be like that of Iago in the play and worse. It would be like the unscrupulous lawyer, anxious for a fee, who says to a client, living happily with his wife: 'I know she is handsome and virtuous and intelligent and loving but she has her faults. There are lovelier women. I could easily get a divorce for you.' We would quickly throw such a man out of the door. A man's country is like his wife. If she is virtuous and well-disposed ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... character-interest is apt to be comparatively 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 for his ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... 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 parts in two persons, namely, that part which they in Philosophy ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... by her brother, and gave orders for providing all necessaries for the child, appointing a very good room in the house for his nursery. Her orders were indeed so liberal, that, had it been a child of her own, she could not have exceeded them; but, lest the virtuous reader may condemn her for showing too great regard to a base-born infant, to which all charity is condemned by law as irreligious, we think proper to observe that she concluded the whole with saying, "Since it ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... were very virtuous that evening or the bait was not a taking one. In vain the Devil whipped the stream at an eddy in front of the Occidental, or trolled his line into the shadows of the Cosmopolitan; five minutes passed ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... would for a year more have 'held fast his soul in his teeth.' But he imagined himself not at all advanced towards forgiveness by his feat. Elizabeth, he complained, persisted in 'the ungrateful custom of making one failing eclipse the merit of many virtuous actions.' Personal resentment, he supposed, closed her ears to his eloquent entreaties that she should keep a small army afoot in Guiana marching towards Manoa. In that event, he was certain, the Inca would yield to her Majesty so many hundred thousand pounds yearly as should ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing |
