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Moral   /mˈɔrəl/   Listen
Moral

adjective
1.
Concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles.  "A moral scrutiny" , "A moral lesson" , "A moral quandary" , "Moral convictions" , "A moral life"
2.
Psychological rather than physical or tangible in effect.  "Moral support"



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"Moral" Quotes from Famous Books



... wishing to keep it quiet." Naturally, considering the tactics that were being employed against them, the Villon Society, which published Mr. Payne's works, had no wish to draw the attention of the authorities to the moral question. Indeed, of the possible action of the authorities, as instigated by the clique, the Society stood in ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... was alarming, and her father seemed to rely wholly upon his future son-in-law for courage and moral support during the trying ordeal. Like most large men of strong physique, Judge Lawrence was as helpless as an infant in the presence of an ailing woman; and his experience as the husband of a wife whose nerves were ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... never lodged a stranger overnight but she had grave doubts of his moral status. She imagined him a murderer escaped from justice, and compared his face with the pictures of criminals in the newspapers, or she was reasonably sure that he was dishonest, although she had little to tempt him. She employed one chambermaid and a stable-boy, and did the cooking herself. ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... breaking point, and the rush of feeling was at flood, there crept up beside him the shadow that threatened his very existence and hers. He had taken the life of her husband. He had no right to her. Down in his heart he knew that there was no moral ground for the position he took and from which he could not extricate himself. He had committed no crime. There had been no thought of himself in that solemn hour when he delivered his best friend out of bondage. Anne had no qualms, and he knew her to be ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... given himself away to a band of adventurers. The idea, the word itself, wore a romantic horror for him—he had always lived on such safe lines. Later it assumed a more interesting, almost a soothing, sense: it pointed a moral, and Pemberton could enjoy a moral. The Moreens were adventurers not merely because they didn't pay their debts, because they lived on society, but because their whole view of life, dim and confused and instinctive, like that of clever colour-blind animals, was ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... father, an upright, moral man, who paid an outward respect to the forms of religion, but cared nothing for the vital power of godliness; trusted entirely to his morality, and looked upon Christians as hypocrites and deceivers. He had been told that his ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... It was this moral courage which gave Garfield his great influence over his companions all through life. And when, after his second term at Geauga; he felt himself able to undertake the charge of one of the winter schools, which were started for small settlers' children, it was this quality, above all others, which ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford

... within three days afterward. I could not really complain, because he had only given me his word of honor as security; I ought to have required of him something substantial. I believe his notice did not deal mainly with the merit of the book, or the lack of it, but with my moral attitude toward the public. It was charged that I had used my reputation to play a swindle upon the public; that Mr. Warner had written as much as half of the book, and that I had used my name to float it and give it currency; a currency—so the critic ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... Government, and that Government one of law and not of force, than was ever known or possible during the early days of man's history. This result, as regards the peace of the world and all the material comforts of life, is highly favorable. Whether the same can be said, of the mental vigor and moral excellence of the human race is a question upon which men may speculate, but which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... single temptation than men of theories and more commonplace natures put forth in a life time. The serious faults of heroes are not overlooked or forgotten; the great man is as much the servant of the moral law as the little man, and pays the same price for disobedience; but generosity of spirit, devotion to high aims and capacity for self-sacrifice often outweigh serious offences. Nelson is less a hero because he yielded to a great temptation; ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... the other. He appeared at their cottages at all hours, and gave the same greeting to each of them. He was their new rector, and having come to Riggan with the intention of doing them good, and improving their moral condition, he intended to do them good, and improve them, in spite of themselves. They must come to church: it was their business to come to church, as it was his business to preach the gospel. All this implied, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that had sold; and "How very kind!" presently quite supplanted "How very strange!" "How exactly like him! and how singular that Mrs. Evelyn and her daughters should have supposed they could have come from Mr. Thorn!" It was a moral impossibility that he should have put such a bunch of flowers together; while to Fleda's eye they so bore the impress of another person's character, that she had absolutely been glad to get them out of sight for fear they might betray ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... success rather than for happiness. Hezekiah, had circumstances been equal, might have been his friend's rival for Janet's capable and saving hand, had not sweet-tempered, laughing Annie Glossop—directed by Providence to her moral welfare, one must presume—fallen in love with him. Between Jane's virtues and Annie's three hundred golden sovereigns Hezekiah had not hesitated a moment. Golden sovereigns were solid facts; wifely virtues, by a serious-minded and strong-willed ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome

... centre of a conventus by Caracalla. The modern town is connected with Smyrna by railway, and exports cotton, wool, opium, cocoons and cereals. The inhabitants are Greeks, Armenians and Turks. The Greeks are of an especially fine type, physical and moral, and noted all through Anatolia for energy and stability. W. M. Ramsay believes them to be direct descendants of the ancient Christian population; but there is reason to think they are partly sprung from more recent immigrants ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... soldier must be continually impressed with the extreme importance of the offensive due to its moral effect. Should an attack fail, it should be followed immediately by another attack before the opponent has an opportunity to assume the offensive. Keep the opponent on the defensive. If, due to circumstances, it is necessary to take the defensive, constantly watch for ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... told the tale, that she could believe it. The two women had rather a melancholy day together, although they did enjoy taking care of the baby, and were not quite sure that it was not as entertaining, with its sprightly little ways, as the old gentleman had been with his grand, moral remarks; and certainly its little shrill pipe was not half so bad as the old tobacco pipe. Sarah said that although she loved her grandfather, she could not help being pleased to have him a baby again; he was so cunning and droll, ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... night's experience; at the same time I do like to keep my records free from appeals to headquarters. It is so much more efficient to manage each cottage independently, subject to a general system. Well, go to bed children and thank you for your moral and physical support. We shall discuss future plans on the morrow," she said sweetly. Truth to tell Miss Agnes Gifford was a very sweet girl—woman, and at the moment both Jane and Dozia fell loyally under ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... handkerchief employed for the purpose studiously put out of sight. He was not ashamed of the pang, but he was not willing that other eyes should behold it. Such was the nature of his pride—the pride of strength, moral strength, and superiority over those weaknesses, which, however natural they may be, are nevertheless not often held becoming ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... appearance might take especial pains to conceal the meanness of their body by the glory of their virtue? You see; the wisest man of his day actually went so far as to use the mirror as an instrument of moral discipline. Again, who is ignorant of the fact that Demosthenes, the greatest master of the art of speaking, always practised pleading before a mirror as though before a professor of rhetoric? When that supreme orator had drained deep draughts of eloquence in the study of Plato the philosopher, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... to maintain as well as individuals; and under constitutional governments—where all classes more or less participate in the exercise of political power—the national character will necessarily depend more upon the moral qualities of the many than of the few. And the same qualities which determine the character of individuals, also determine the character of nations. Unless they are highminded, truthful, honest, virtuous, and courageous, they will be held in light esteem by other nations, and be without ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... was useless; for she had no business to assume the part of Providence to the stone mason and deprive him of his own choice in the matter of the inheritance. But fortunately she was not given to the picking of moral bones. She said to herself positively that Tom Clark, whatever he might once have become under other conditions, would not know now what to do with money: he would merely "get into trouble with it," as Archie had got into ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... pure, it soon would rend; If earth were not thus sure, 'twould break and bend; Without these powers, the spirits soon would fail; If not so filled, the drought would parch each vale; Without that life, creatures would pass away; Princes and kings, without that moral sway, However grand ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze

... recent matter to the ancient Epic is not far to seek. The Epic became more popular with the nation at large than dry codes of law and philosophy, and generations of Brahmanical writers laboured therefore to insert in the Epic itself their rules of caste and moral conduct, their laws and philosophy. There is no more venerable character in the Epic than Bhishma, and these rules and laws have therefore been supposed to come from his lips on the solemn occasion of his death. As a storehouse of Hindu laws and traditions and moral rules these episodes ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital, the chlorotic squatters on huge yachts, the speed-mad fugitives from the furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... Carteret mustn't be allowed to starve; so the parson, who loved the handsome lad, put down his hack and sent the prodigal a remittance. He had better have sent him a hempen rope, for necessity might have made a man out of Master Dick; the remittance turned him into a moral idiot. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... judgment concerning actual events. Morals and nature offer such an abundance of facts with which we may connect the teaching of language, that it is better to dispense with legends. AEsop's fables combine the moral and the natural in a manner unsurpassable. My child tells me one of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... warm filial affection produced by a consistent parental friendship, the state of mind caused by parental displeasure is not only a salutary check to future misconduct of like kind, but is intrinsically salutary. The moral pain consequent on having, for the time being, lost so loved a friend, stands in place of the physical pain usually inflicted; and proves equally, if not more, efficient. While instead of the fear ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... did not poison this woman?' he said, in a mocking tone. 'Bah! you are less moral than I thought ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... was ungentle, but it came from the bottom of his belief concerning himself, and a longing for moral ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... committed during the past few years, as they culminated in strong representations being made to the Sultan of Morocco by the various Governments under whose flag the respective vessels sailed. Some of them went so far as to send warships to cruise along the Riffian coast. This step apparently had some moral effect upon the pirates, for from that time onwards attacks upon foreign vessels practically ceased. Something more than this, however, was needed, for no one could say how soon the marauding expeditions might be renewed upon a larger scale than ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... tenfold by setting up a mechanical saw-yard at Saint-Elophe, the big neighbouring village. He was a plain, blunt man, as he himself used to say, "with no false bottom, nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves;" just a few moral ideas to guide his course through life, ideas as old and simple as could be. And those few ideas themselves were subject to a principle that governed his whole existence and ruled all his actions, the love of ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... respect of the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than the organic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common with the inorganic. True, it would be hard to place one's self on the same moral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; it is enough that we should feel the stone to have a moral platform of its own, though that platform embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws of gravitation, chemical affinity, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... way to it or not, you still have a certain discretion of avoiding the deadly missile—that by superior skill or quickness, you may anticipate your antagonist and hinder his bullet from being sent. There are other circumstances of a moral nature to sustain you in a trial of this kind—pride, angry passion, the fear of social contempt; and, stronger than all—perhaps most frequent of all—the jealousy of rival love. From none of all these could I derive support, as I stood before the raised musket of ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... Newcomen and Calley. These changes gave us the modern steam engine; and these are Watt's first and greatest, but by no means only, contributions to the production of the modern world with all its comforts, its luxuries and its opportunities for material, intellectual and moral advancement of individual and of race. His work was to this extent complete ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... took no hurt; nay, his spiritual life by its own dynamic force grew and thrived, for, governed by other laws than those that control our physical natures, the food of the soul is what it desires it to be, and moral poison has often served for nutriment. It is death to souls that desire death. In another sense than Bonaparte's, every man born unto the world may say, "I ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... tenderly, and our fondness encreased as we grew old. There was in fact nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had an elegant house, situated in a fine country, and a good neighbourhood. The year was spent in moral or rural amusements; in visiting our rich neighbours, and relieving such as were poor. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the blue bed ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... that the natives must in former times have possessed a much greater degree of civilization than now, or that they are the remains of a great and illustrious nation, which has been ruined by some of these physical or moral revolutions which have occasioned such astonishing changes in the world. The Chilese language is so exceedingly copious, both in radical words, and in the use of compounds, that a complete dictionary of it would fill a large volume. Every verb, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... against England and Flanders. But now, at the climax of his fortunes, his career was abruptly closed. He died suddenly, at the age of fifty-five. What caused his death? Grotius affirms that he killed himself; but, in his eagerness to point the moral of his story, he seems to have overstepped the bounds of historic truth. The Spanish bigot was rarely a suicide, for the rights of Christian burial and repose in consecrated ground were denied to the remains of the self-murderer. There is positive evidence, too, in a codicil to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... ground of inner reality is in every person, so far as he is a person; it shines forth as a steady illumination in the soul, and, while everything else is transitory, this Word is eternal and has been the moral and spiritual guide of all ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... We're intrinsically different. I might have been like you—once. It's too late now. If I'd been trusted before this thing gripped me so tight—Marcella, the thing that makes other people do hard things is missing in me! I've killed it by drinking and lying! I'm without moral sense, Marcella! Can't you see? I'm castrated in my mind! There's lots of ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... this will usually be the rear. The compactness of the order attacked, the number of the ships cut off, the length of time during which they can be isolated and outnumbered, will all affect the results. A very great factor in the issue will be the moral effect, the confusion introduced into a line thus broken. Ships coming up toward the break are stopped, the rear doubles up, while the ships ahead continue their course. Such a moment is critical, and calls for instant action; but the men are rare who in an unforeseen ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... mayhap, come back to me one day a potential thief, a criminal probably, a drink-sodden reprobate at best. Such things are done every day in this glorious Revolution of ours—done in the sacred name of France and of Liberty. And the moral murder of my child is to be my punishment for daring to turn a deaf ear to the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... to fix the chronology of the poet's works, and have been tempted to speculate upon the evolution of his literary and moral ideas. Professor Foerster's chronology is generally accepted, and there is little likelihood of his being in error when he supposes Chretien's work to have been done as follows: the lost "Tristan" ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... The other of his two personalities—one which I had only just begun to apprehend, and before the majesty of which I bowed in spirit—was that of a man who was cold, stern to himself and to others, proud, religious to the point of fanaticism, and pedantically moral. At the present moment he was, as ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... and the United States. The British authorities had in their own hands, as they naturally supposed, a strong leverage, by which our Government could be coerced, as it had been in 1854, into reciprocity of trade upon other products. It was to be a series of moral coercions, either accomplished or attempted. Coerced into accepting Mr. Delfosse as third Commissioner, we were now to be coerced into a commercial treaty for the benefit of Canada in order to escape the possible award on ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... measures by any pestilent editor. He filled all places of profit with his friends, relatives, and dependents. Everything was referred to his royal will and pleasure. His manners were stiff and formal, his tastes moral, his habits on Sundays religious, and his temper vindictive. Next to the articles of war, the thirty-nine Articles claimed his obedience. When his term of office was drawing to a close he went to church ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... verses had made a pompous enumeration of every physical and moral quality of his eminence, it was of course natural that he should return the compliment, and here my task was easy. At last having mastered my subject well, I began my work, and giving full career to my imagination and to my feelings I composed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of Spiritual growth. The Greatest ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... consideration of vocations from each of several viewpoints. We may classify occupations open to girls (1) from the standpoint of the girl's fitness, physical and psychological; (2) from the standpoint of industrial conditions, the sanitary, mental, and moral atmosphere, and the rewards obtainable; (3) as factors increasing, decreasing, or not affecting the girl's possible home efficiency or the likelihood of taking up home life; (4) from the standpoint of the girl's education; (5) from the standpoint of ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... he was created in union with God, a union which conferred on him many supernatural gifts, gifts, that is, which were not a part of his nature, but were in the way of an addition to his nature. "By created nature man is endowed with moral sense, and is thus made responsible for righteousness; but he is unequal to its fulfilment. The all-righteous Creator could be trusted to complete His work. He endowed primitive man with superadded gifts of grace, especially the supernatural gift, donum ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... individual Army units—whatever the percentage and the grounds for that percentage—was in itself a residual form of discrimination. Nor did anyone ask how establishing a race quota, clearly distinct from restricting men according to mental, moral, or professional standards, could achieve the "effective working (p. 459) level" posited by the Army's ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... looked—who was also called as a witness, "We'll know more about Mr. J. G. Kerry when this trial is over than will suit his book." It did not occur to Augustus Burlingame that in Crozier, who knew why he had fled the house of the showy but virtuous Mrs. Tynan, he might find a witness of a mental and moral calibre with baffling qualities and some ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... There is a strange incongruity in the French genius. With all their volatility, prattle, and fondness for bons mots they delight in a species of drawling, melancholy, church music. Their most favourite dramatic pieces are almost without incident, and the dialogue of their comedies consists of moral insipid apophthegms, entirely destitute of wit or repartee." While amusing himself with the sights of Paris, Smollett drew up that caustic delineation of the French character which as a study in calculated depreciation has rarely been surpassed. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... hope of finding it well founded, in the course of his examination of the testimony for the authenticity and authority of the books of the New Testament, comes to the knowledge of all these circumstances. If the reader be such a man, I would ask him, if he can rationally rest his belief in the moral attributes of God and his faith in a future life, upon a foundation composed of ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... contemplate this risk, hitherto scarce taken into account. She spoke of it with Mary, the one friend to whom her heart went out in absolute trust, from whom she concealed but few of her thoughts, and whose moral worth, only understood since circumstances compelled her reliance upon it, had set before her a new ideal of life. Mary, she well knew, abhorred the deceit they were practising, and thought hard things of the man who made it a necessity; so it did not surprise her that the devoted ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... great Revolution," the girl replied, "the highest education not being universal as with us, but limited to a small body, the members of this body, known as the learned and professional classes, necessarily became the moral and intellectual teachers and leaders of the nation. They molded the thoughts of the people, set them their standards, and through the control of their minds dominated their material interests and determined the course of civilization. No such power is now monopolized by any class, because ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... them, but it is loath some to think of those heaps of ordure, accumulated from generation to generation, and carefully passed down from age to age as something precious and vital, and not justly regarded as the moral offal ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... heresy," said Miss Channing briskly. "It's a crying necessity for blue pills, that's what it is. Your whole mental and moral and physical and spiritual system must be out of kilter, my child. No vacation plans! You must have vacation plans. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... had collected for the soldiers who had entrusted their cases to him. And as it was discovered he had squandered it, the result was he was prosecuted and sent to jail for defrauding his clients, and lay there for a considerable time. Since that period he has been a moral leper, a disgrace to his friends, and loathed and shunned by ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... normal child, under wise and loving guidance, may become useful to his fellows, moral in character, strong in intellect, with a body which is an efficient instrument of the soul; in ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm

... Discourse (December 10th, 1881), we are called upon to consider that other question which has so often perplexed the artist, especially the English artist, in whom the moral sentiment is apt to take a threatening form on occasion: "What is the relation in which Art stands to ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... ambition that I looked upon it that as he, a humble clerk, had risen to be the guest of a mighty nation, so I, a humble pedagogue [he was then pupil teacher at the Academy], might by unremitted and arduous intellectual and moral exertion become a light, a star, among the names of my ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp for him when he was absent, to pull off his wet boots or wait on him at dinner when he returned. A young man who should have so doted on the idea, moral and physical, of any woman, might be properly described as being in love, head and heels, and would have behaved himself accordingly. But Kirstie - though her heart leaped at his coming footsteps - though, when he patted her shoulder, her face brightened for the day - had not a hope or thought ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shocked by what had been let out respecting Richard's forgery; not by the fact itself so much as by what it was a sign of. Still, he had known the young man from childhood, and had seen, and often regretted, that his want of moral courage had rendered him peculiarly liable to all the bad effects arising from his father's severe and arbitrary mode of treatment. Dick would never have had "pluck" enough to be a hardened villain, under any circumstances; but, unless some good influence, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... strict observers of moral rules, especially in commercial matters; insomuch that merchants of reputation put up sums of gold cupangs, always in decimal numbers, in silken bags, sealed with their seals; and these bags always pass current ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the American people, on which I have so often hazarded my all and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country and of my own duties toward it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured but exalted by experience and age; and, with humble reverence, I feel it to be my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of a people who profess and call themselves Christians, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... her corpse to the berryin'-ground. Leastways, that's the tale. Jan Spettigue was the last as seed 'em, but as he be'eld three devils on his own chimbly-piece the week arter, along o' too much rum, p'r'aps he made a mistake. Anyways, 'tes a moral yarn, an' true to natur'. These young wimmen es a very detarmined sex, whether 'tes a leppard in the case ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... si noble, si fine, si piquante, si delicate, si seduisante; votre gentilesse et vos graces changent si souvent pour n'en etre que plus aimable, que l'on ne peut saisir aucun de vos traits ni au physique ni au moral." She was niece of La Marquise de Boufflers, and, having fled to England at the breaking out of the French Revolution, resided here until her death, which took place ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... instinct that something might interfere in my favour. I was acting just as men act when in danger of being drowned. I was catching at straws. I need not say that I was cool: you would not believe me, nor would there be a word of truth in it, for I was far from cool in the moral sense of the word, whatever I might be personally and physically. On the contrary, I was frightened nearly out of my senses; and had just enough left to direct me back to the post, though this might only have been ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... other. Much that interests me has already had its epoch with him; his world is not my world." Goethe had expressed the same feeling. He saw Schiller occupying the very position which he himself had given up as untenable; he saw his powerful genius carrying out triumphantly "those very paradoxes, moral and dramatic, from which he was struggling to get liberated." "No union," as Goethe writes, "was to be dreamt of. Between two spiritual antipodes there was more intervening than a simple diameter of the spheres. Antipodes of that sort ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... with what magnanimous wisdom he kept himself above the petty altercations of the day. But for Hazlitt, Sir Walter was the father-in-law and friendly patron of John Lockhart, he was the person who had thrown the weight of his powerful influence to make John Wilson Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh! He did not carry his prejudice ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... Dudley North, was completely cleared, not only from legal, but also from moral guilt. He was the chief object of attack; and yet a severe examination brought nothing to light that was not to his honour. Tillotson was called as a witness. He swore that he had been the channel of communication between Halifax and Russell when Russell was a prisoner in the Tower. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... hypnotized subjects that scientists first learned of the suggestibility of the subconscious mind. In hypnosis a person can be made to believe almost anything and to do almost anything compatible with the safety and the moral sense of the individual. The instinct of self-preservation will not allow the most deeply hypnotized person to do anything dangerous to himself; and the moral complexes, laid in the subconscious, never permit a person to perform in earnest an act ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... education for youth had always been close to my heart. I saw clearly the arid results of ordinary instruction, aimed only at the development of body and intellect. Moral and spiritual values, without whose appreciation no man can approach happiness, were yet lacking in the formal curriculum. I determined to found a school where young boys could develop to the full stature of manhood. My first step in that direction was made with seven children ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... church members held slaves. Some were treated kindly, others harshly. There was not a shade of difference between their slaves and those of their infidel neighbors, either in their physical, intellectual, or moral state: in some cases they ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... preceding pleasing "traits" without feeling proud of him as a countryman. With respect to his loves or pleasures, I do not assume a right to give an opinion. Reports are ever to be received with caution, particularly when directed against man's moral integrity; and he who dares justify himself before that awful tribunal where all must appear, alone may censure the errors of a fellow-mortal. Lord Byron's character is worthy of his genius. To do good in secret, and shun the world's applause, ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori

... her fascinating packages, just before dinner, "here's a funny thing! If I had gone bad, you know, so that I could keep buying nice, pretty, simple things like this, as fast as I needed them, I'd feel better—I mean truly cleaner and more moral—than when I ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... with that, Larry. I think these things cannot be said too often: they keep up the moral tone of the community. As you know, I claim the right to think for myself in religious matters: in fact, I am ready to avow myself a bit of a—of a—well, I don't care who knows it—a bit of a Unitarian; but if the Church of England contained ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... out the letter of his instructions from Lord Roberts, and, seeing that Broadwood's column was apparently safe, went on towards Waterval Drift: whither also Martyr had already sent the greater portion of the mounted infantry. Thus the brothers De Wet gained not only an actual, but also a moral success of the greatest importance to their cause, and took away the prizes they had so unexpectedly won, under the eyes of a strong British force helplessly watching the commandos trailing ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... wouldn't take the sal volatile—you know how I detest the stuff!—and sit still where he'd put me like a good little girl, he ordered me about as though I were a child of six. He absolutely bullied me! Then it apparently occurred to him to take my moral welfare in hand, and I should judge he considered that Jezebel and Delilah were positively provincial in their methods as compared ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... has come before the public during the present generation who has achieved a larger and more deserving popularity among young people than "Oliver Optic." His stories have been very numerous, but they have been uniformly excellent in moral tone and literary quality. As indicated in the general title, it is the author's intention to conduct the readers of this entertaining series "around the world." As a means to this end, the hero of the story purchases a steamer which he names ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic

... after Ralph had positively declared that he would not go actually with the Neefits and occupy the same apartments. "It would be altogether wrong,—for Polly's sake," said Ralph, looking very wise and very moral. To this view Neefit assented, not being quite sure how far "the Captain" might be correct ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... Divine and Moral, Ancient and Modern; or Delights for the Ingenious in above Fifty Select Emblems, Curiously Ingraven upon Copper Plates. With engraved Frontispiece, &c. 12mo. Lond. 1721. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various

... what you mean by being a Christian," said papa at last. "It is not living a good moral life and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... I want to please you. But of my own free choice I wouldn't have it. I'm no abolitionist, but I don't want that kind of property. I don't want the life that has to go with it. I know other sorts that are so much better. I'm not thinking only of the moral responsibility—" ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... favor was little Runnles, the melancholy flute player, and the most doubtful was the bosun, whose physical courage was equal to anything, but who was daunted by what appealed more particularly to the moral qualities of patience and endurance. He dwelt lugubriously on the difficulties I have already mentioned, and shook his head when I combated his objections; but he agreed to throw in his lot with the rest of us, and said that if we once got clear of the walls, and there ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... very much in trying to account for the musical genius of the composer. Even the popular idea that genius is derived from the mother does not hold in Haydn's case. If Frau Haydn had a genius for anything it was merely for moral excellence and religion and the good management of her household. Like Leigh Hunt's mother, however, she was "fond of music, and a gentle singer in her way"; and more than one intimate of Haydn in his ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... can plunge, and hedge, and jockey the jugginses as much as he's a mind to. Wonder how that bloomin' French Bourse 'ud get along without a bit o' the pitch-and-toss barney, as every man as is a man finds the werry salt of life. Yah! This here Moral game is a gettin' played down too darned low for anythink. And wot's it mean, arter all? Why, 'No Naughtiness, except for the Nobs!' That's about the exact size of it, and it's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various

... be proved by the acquisition of knowledge and the exhibition of high moral character, in examples of economy and a disposition to encourage industrial enterprises, conducted by men of their own ranks, will it be possible to make political progress in the face of the present ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... defence: "There is nothing more beautiful in the world than the female form; it is the flower of flowers. Why should it not be painted?" And then, while still he argued for the return of the Greek's love of beauty, covering his moral depravity with the mantle of the philosopher, he placed another canvas before her—something so unrefined, so animal, so destructive of womanly modesty and of all reserve, that any one looking upon it would instantly know ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... Lanrivain's complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who swore to having seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night of the murder. One way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days was to put some sort of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person. It is not clear what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on the third day, when she was brought in court, she "appeared weak and wandering," and after being encouraged to collect herself ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... shall not be suspected of ascribing to women any ingrained or fundamental moral superiority to men. Women are not better than men. The mantle of moral superiority forced upon them as a substitute for intellectual equality they accepted, because they could not help themselves. They dropped it as soon as the substitute was no ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... had more sense, but Justice Shallow would have been more practicable! No one took a rational view but Ramsbotham of the factory, a very sensible man, with excellent feeling. When it is recorded in history, who will believe that seven moral, well-meaning men agreed in condemning a poor lad of fifteen to a fine of five shillings, costs three-and-sixpence—a sum he could no more pay than I the National Debt, and with the alternative of three ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... same, no doubt, which she had employed to get rid of poor Kergrist, and that unlucky Malgat, the cashier of the Mutual Discount Society. Purely moral means, based upon her thorough knowledge of the character of her victims, and her own infernal power ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... discors[Lat]; Bedlam, all hell broke loose; bull in a china shop; all the fat in the fire, diable a' quatre[Fr], Devil to pay; pretty kettle of fish; pretty piece of work[Fr], pretty piece of business[Fr]. [legal terms] disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c. adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c. 61; ravel &c. 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... this, all that is essential, evidently escapes Mr. Redford. He licenses what the Times rightly calls "such a gross indecency as 'The Girl from Maxim's.'" But he refuses to license "Monna Vanna," and he refuses to state his reason for withholding the license. The fact is, that moral questions are discussed in it, not taken for granted, and the plain man, the man in the street, is alarmed whenever people begin to discuss moral questions. "The Girl from Maxim's" is merely indecent, it raises no problems. "Monna Vanna" raises problems. Therefore, says the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... generally four. The greatest excess of males is in illegitimate births. The reversal of proportions in the progress of life shows that the male mortality is much greater than the female. Hence the more tranquil habits and greater predominance of the moral nature in women increases their longevity, while the greater indulgence of the passions and appetites, the greater muscular and intellectual force among men, are hostile to longevity. Hence the establishment ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... personal message for Emeline. The older woman had never learned the care of herself, her children, her husband, or her house. She had naturally nothing to teach her daughter. Emeline's father occasionally thundered a furious warning to his daughters as to certain primitive moral laws. He did not tell Emeline and her sisters why they might some day consent to abandon the path of virtue, nor when, nor how. He never dreamed of winning their affection and confidence, or of selecting their friends, and making home a ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... with a light laugh, "you seem to have already wandered much among these moral moraines, and to have acquired some of their ruggedness. How can you talk of such dismal things to a patient? But are you really in earnest about my ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... invitation to visit this important industrial metropolis of Northern England. The invitation, he said, was the more satisfactory because Newcastle was advancing in the van of sanitary improvement, and was thus proving the interest of this great city in a subject which was contributing largely to the moral and material progress of the nation. Of all the definite questions which were made the subject of the instruction by congresses at the present time, there was scarcely one which deserved a greater share of attention than that which called that congress together—namely, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... able to bring into the field as many men as were contained in an ordinary consular army of two legions; and it was unmistakeably evident that the land had not yet recovered from the depopulation occasioned by the campaigns of Alexander and by the Gallic invasion. But while in Greece proper the moral and political energy of the people had decayed, the day of national vigour seemed to have gone by, life appeared scarce worth living for, and even of the better spirits one spent time over the wine-cup, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... which was the lift. The figure of the girl who had stepped out first was about to disappear. As the Englishman looked she vanished. But he had time to realize that a gait, the carriage of a head and its movement in turning, can produce on an observer a moral effect. A joyous sanity came to him from this unknown girl and made him feel joyously sane. It seemed to sweep over him, like a cool and fresh breeze of the sea falling through pine woods, to lift from him some of the dust of his journey. He resolved ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... compensation often occurs, Christian, inheriting mind and person from him, had inherited temperament, disposition, character from the lowly-born mother, who was every thing that he was not, and who had lived just long enough to stamp on the girl of thirteen a moral impress which could resist all contamination, and leave behind a lovely dream of motherhood that might, perhaps— God knows!—have ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... to Mr. Barclay," said Caroline. "I have, as I promised my father that I would, consulted in the first place my own heart, and considered my own happiness. He appears to me incapable of that enthusiasm which rises either to the moral or intellectual sublime. I respect his understanding, and esteem his principles; but in conversing with him, I always feel—and in passing my life with him, how much more should I feel!—that there is a want of the higher qualities of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... distinguishes between profane and sacred, i.e., inspired writings. As he is conscious that all knowledge of truth is based on inspiration, so all writings, that is all parts, paragraphs, or sentences of writings which contain moral and religious truth are in his view inspired.[113] This opinion, however, does not exclude a distinction between these writings, but rather requires it. (2) The Old Testament, a fixed collection of books, is regarded by Clement, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... which we have derived inestimable benefits, we are more discontented than the slaves of the Dey of Tripoli. Sir, if we had been slaves of the Dey of Tripoli, we should have been too much sunk in intellectual and moral degradation to be capable of the rational and manly discontent of freemen. It is precisely because our institutions are so good that we are not perfectly contended with them; for they have educated us into a capacity for enjoying still better institutions. That the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... following Louis Akers' call Mademoiselle learned of it, by the devious route of the servants' hall, and she went to Lily at once, yearning and anxious, and in her best lace collar. She needed courage, and to be dressed in her best gave her moral strength. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted to steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place," reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I have n't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in my body." And I believe Strong was not far ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... in sentimental tramways and have shares in the moral funds—maybe not moral according to the threadbare ideal of the genus ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, by Way of Essays', printed in A Collection of several Tracts of Edward Earl of Clarendon, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... notes of a voyage to the tropics, and a sojourn in Cuba during the last winter. The endeavor has been to present a comprehensive view of the island, past and present, and to depict the political and moral darkness which have so long enshrouded it. A view of its interesting inhabitants, with a glance at its beautiful flora and vegetation generally, has been a source of such hearty enjoyment to the author that he desires to share the pleasure with the appreciative ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... the venturers, flame of fire among them, urger, inspirer, and moral leader, a living pillar before them in her eagerness—must needs curb her soul in bonds of patience and wait at Fort de Seviere ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... by Dugan for a while. You'd ought to have seen her at the piano singing 'My Maryland' and 'Dixie' to us just as if she had starred in a mutiny every week of her life. She was doing it for what they call the moral effect, and it sure did keep up the nerve of the boys. I could see Jimmie and Billie get real gay again. Used to live in Tennessee, ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... endowed by King Magnus II. and his queen. About 1350 she went to Rome, partly to obtain from the pope the authorization of the new order, partly in pursuance of her self-imposed mission to elevate the moral tone of the age. It was not till 1370 that Pope Urban V. confirmed the rule of her order; but meanwhile Bridget had made herself universally beloved in Rome by her kindness and good works. Save for occasional pilgrimages, including one to Jerusalem in 1373, she remained in Rome till her death ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... that there was nothing against his moral character, so I made no objections to his paying his ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... fights for clean living, for protection of its children against sexual ruin and treacherous diseases, against white slavery and the poisoning of married life. But while there must be perfect agreement about the moral duty of the social community, there can be the widest disagreement about the right method of carrying on this fight. The popular view of the day is distinctly that as these evils were hidden from sight by the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... admiration, declaring that his ideal of happiness, which he considers of course as quite unattainable, would be to marry the woman of his affections. The immediate result of a state in which that sort of bliss is considered to be generally beyond the grasp of humanity has been to produce the moral peculiarities of the French novel, of the French play, and of the French household, as it is usually exhibited in books and on ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... universal vision had dissolved and crystallized into the pitiless physical needs of the individual. After the funeral a wave almost of relief had swept over the town at the thought that the suspension and the strain were at an end. The business of keeping alive, and the moral compulsion of keeping abreast of one's neighbours, reasserted their supremacy even while the carriages, quickening their pace a trifle on the return drive, rolled out of the churchyard. Now at the end of a week only Virginia ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... over, for Caleb's wrath was of the short and fierce kind, and Raften, turning away in moral defeat, growled: "See that ye put that fire out safe. Ye ought all to be in yer beds an' aslape, ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... over them not a little, of late, and she was just as anxious as old John Burnit had been to have him correct those defects; and she, like Bobby's father, was only thankful that they were not defects of manliness, of courage or of moral or mental fiber. They were only defects of training, for which the elder Burnit, as he had himself ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... nervous supposition that they are wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time. This however is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserve or unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... and considering the great subject of mirthfulness merely in the abstract, do you not see how true it is that it is and must be the salt of life, that it preserves all living men from sourness, and decay, and moral death? Now, there's Watts, for instance—Isaac Watts, you know, author of that great work, 'Watts's Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Infant Minds,' or it may have been 'Watts's Divine Songs and Spiritual Hymns for Infant Mind.' I really don't remember. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... 1878, with one T. J. Trinkle as instructor. He was a man of limited education, but prepared to help those who had not made advancement in the fundamentals. What he lacked in education he made up in moral influence, and his career is still remembered as a success. The cause of education among Negroes of Hinton was fearlessly supported by E. J. Pack and C. H. Payne, once a teacher in a rural district in this county himself and later a minister and a public servant in this ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... Abbe de L'Epee teaching a deaf and dumb youth. He desires it to be placed in the Court of the Sourds et Muets Institution at Paris, to which he gives it in recognition of the debt of gratitude which he and his deaf mute brethren in misfortune owe to the Abbe for their moral and intellectual emancipation. ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... well that Janice was not at home during these few days, as it gave her somebody's troubles besides her own to think about. And the Day household really, if not visibly, was in mourning for Broxton Day. Uncle Jason's face was as "long as the moral law," and Aunt 'Mira, lachrymose at best, was now continuously and deeply gloomy. Marty was the only person in the Day household able to cheer ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long

... a battery opposite Fort Brown. It was in a position to do some material and enormous moral damage. On the ninth it was nearly ready for bloody work, and would probably begin next morning. That night, however, an extraordinary event took place, and showed how far from terror-palsy were the motley ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... that scholastic theology has degenerated into a species of philosophy that has no knowledge of God, and walks in darkness because it disregards his Word. Also Aristotle and Cicero, who have the greatest influence with this tribe, give broad instructions concerning moral excellences. They magnify these exceedingly as social forces since they recognize them as useful for private and public ends. In nowise, however, do they teach that God's will and command is to be regarded far more than private ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... as plain to the observing eye as the signs of the woods are significant to the trapper. The news columns tell you what you can expect out of the advertising columns. A newspaper always finds the class of readers to which it is edited. When its mental tone is low and its moral tone is careless depend upon it—the readers ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman

... this moral reaction, that she no longer sought to discipline her mind. She sipped the drink gingerly, and her thought fluttered backward and forward, full of contradictions and repetitions, as thought is in life, but now free.... Suppose, after all, that her past was not escaped? It wasn't such an easy ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... convincing talker he had ever heard. As Jack Prince's assistant he had charge of the Rainey Company's large advertising expenditure, and the two men being thrown often together a mutual regard grew up between them. Sam believed him to be without moral sense; he knew him to be able and honest and he found in the association with him a fund of odd little sweetnesses of character and action that lent an inexpressible charm to the person ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... have always been crimes that were not of the class that implied moral wrong. The acts of the revolutionist who saw, or thought he saw, visions of something better; the man who is inspired by the love of his fellow-man and who has no personal ends to gain; the man who in his devotion to an idea or a person risks his life or liberty or property or ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... Were he proud of her, as a Christian husband ought to be of so elegant a wife, would he still be in Bloomsbury? Envy him! the high gentleman, so true to his blood, all galled and blistered by the moral vulgarities of a tuft-hunting, toad-eating mimic of the Lady Selinas. Envy him! Well, why not? All women have their foibles. Wise husbands must bear and forbear. Is that all? wherefore, then, is her aspect so furtive, wherefore on his a wild, vigilant sternness? ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... into successes of little importance. A system which laid down as a principle that an admiral should not use the force in his hands, which sent him against the enemy with the foreordained purpose of receiving rather than making the attack, a system which sapped moral power to save material resources, must have unhappy results.... It is certain that this deplorable system was one of the causes of the lack of discipline and startling defections which marked the periods of Louis XVI., of the [first] Republic, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... that it took a long time for a moral position to find its way across the Atlantic. He was very sorry that its voyage had been so long," etc.—Speech of Lord Dudley and Ward ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the treasures of the past we cannot tell. No one can doubt the influence of Christianity in reviving letters, in giving a stimulus to thought, in creating a noble ambition for the good of society, and producing that moral tone which fits the soul to appreciate what is truly great. It was the church which preserved the manuscripts of classical ages; which perpetuated the Latin language in chants and litanies and theological essays; which gave ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... laity, by a natural and pardonable revulsion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science? That all love was lust; that all women had their price; that profligacy, though an ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if not necessary, as to be hardly a moral sin, were notions which Eustace must needs have gathered from the hints of his preceptors; for their written works bear to this day fullest and foulest testimony that such was their opinion; and that their conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whit higher ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... as give by Webster, are 1 "a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, 3 or child; an individual of the human race." He adds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of the three subjects, or agents, ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker G. Eddy

... faithfully and accurately to his superior. The person of John Anderson, his suspicions concerning him, the strangely formed friendship of the spy with the Military Governor, were indicated with only that amount of reserve necessary to distinguish a moral from an absolute certitude. Events had moved with great rapidity, yet he felt assured that the real crisis was only now impending, for which reason he desired to return to the city so as to be ready for any service ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... My system is similar to that of the State: the higher the debt of a country, the higher stands her credit; therefore, what is credit?—wealth! This is elementary, not counting that it involves a high question of moral philosophy. But I shall explain my financial and philosophical ideas on a more favorable occasion. Go to Mariette, and report to me later. As for me, I have promised to take my little shop-girl out on a new saddle-horse which, by the way, cost me an outrageous price. ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... Public Safety, never ventured to attempt—to abstain from labour, and endure want and starvation for months together, for an object of which they often in secret disapprove—it may be conceived how wide-spread and fatal is the confusion of moral principle, and habits of idleness and insubordination thus produced. Their effects invariably appear for a course of years afterwards, in the increased roll of criminal commitments, and the number of young persons of both sexes, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... moral nature than has a tiger or a kite. He was founded upon no integrity, would keep faith with no one save himself. Storri was not a moral lunatic, for that would suppose some original morality and its subversion to insane aims; rather he was the moral idiot. At that, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... time in the councils of his church, and his way of looking at great questions showed the characteristics of a really broad-minded statesman. His sermons on special occasions, as at Thanksgiving and on public anniversaries, were noted for their directness and power in dealing with the greater moral questions before the people. On the other hand, there was a saying then current, "Dull as Dr. Bacon when he's nothing but the Gospel to preach"; but this, like so many other smart sayings, was more epigrammatic than true: even ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... a certain slim, mild apothecary in the town, by the name of Meeks. It was generally given out that Mr. Meeks had a vague desire to get married, but, being a shy and timorous youth, lacked the moral courage to do so. It was also well known that the Widow Conway had not buried her heart with the late lamented. As to her shyness, that was not so clear. Indeed, her attentions to Mr. Meeks, whose mother she might have been, were of ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... up to me to push home a great moral lesson, and I done my best. But what's the use? Next mornin' I takes up the paper and reads how Candy Boy ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... Valmont and Madame de Merteuil. It raised in my mind a detestation of such cold-blooded, inhuman profligacy, and I felt that I would rather every pleasure that can flow from the intercourse of women were debarred me than run such a course. The moral effect upon my mind was stronger than any which ever resulted from the most didactic work, and if anyone wants to excite remorse in the most vicious mind I would recommend him to make use of 'Les ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... distinction's tributary spoil: Long has thy country, with a fond acclaim, Joy'd in thy genius, gloried in thy fame; Progressive talents in thy works beheld, Thine earlier volumes by thy last excell'd! The noblest motive sway'd thy moral pen, Intent to meliorate the sons of men From that now distant year, when faith design'd Thy sacred dramas for the youthful mind; To this rich season of thy honour'd age, When, with the fervour of a Christian sage, Thine eve ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley

... assuredly, as in the firmament that simple law of gravitation reigns supreme—making it indeed a kosmos—majestic, orderly, comely in its going—ruling, and binding not the less the fiery and nomadic comets, than the gentle, punctual moons—so certainly, and to us moral creatures to a degree transcendantly more important, does the whole intelligent universe move around and move towards and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... fate was destined to a foreign strand, A petty fortress and an "humble" hand; He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a TALE. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... restore his constitution. He died on April 16th, 1687, at Kirkby Moorside, after a few days' illness, caused by sitting on the damp grass when heated from a fox chase. The scene of his death was the house of a tenant, not "the worst inn's worst room" ("Moral Essays," epist. iii.). He was buried ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... continent; that we shall spread our language, institutions, and civilization through a wider space than any nation has yet filled with a like beneficent influence? And are we prepared to barter these hopes, this sublime moral empire, for conquests by force? Are we prepared to sink to the level of unprincipled nations; to content ourselves with a vulgar, guilty greatness; to adopt in our youth maxims and ends which must brand our future with sordidness, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... picture should teach a lesson and have a moral, he had no sympathy. And with Reynolds, who thought there was nothing worth picturing but the human face, he took issue. Beauty to him was its own excuse for being. However, in all of Gainsborough's landscapes you find the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... sunshine of the smile of God. What is called 'sin' is the work of Man—God has no part in it. 'By pride the angels fell.' By pride Man delays his eternal delight. When he presumes to be wiser than his Creator,—when he endeavours to upset the organisation of Nature, and invents a kind of natural and moral code of his own, then comes disaster. The rule of a pure and happy life is to take all that God sends with thankfulness in moderation—the fruits of the earth, the joys of the senses, the love of one's fellow- creatures, the delights of the intellect, the raptures of the soul; and to ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli



Words linked to "Moral" :   honorable, good, immoral, mental, clean-living, incorrupt, clean, signification, significance, righteous, chaste, honourable, meaning, import, virtuous



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