"Point of honor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the tropics. But one condition is essential to the social education of man,—namely, morality. There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point of honor, as in the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the Spartan and Roman republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious sect which imputes its virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or esprit du corps, of a masonic or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... which you are good enough to take into such kind consideration, permit me to assure you anew that I aspire to one only blessing—quiet time for work in my own room. Orare et laborare. The point of honor, which no one understands better than yourself, attaches me to Hungary, our country. May I fulfil there ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... Copies of Letters which lately passed between him and Capt Stanhope Commander of the British Ship of War Mercury. This is the same Person, as I am told, who, when a Prisoner here in the early time of the War, was not too delicate in Point of Honor to break his Parole. The Governor however had treated him from the Time of his Arrival with the Civilities and Respect due to a Foreigner in his Station, without personal or national Distinction. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... with Mr. Dale's convictions as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honor, tended much to compose the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler sex would expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have been irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in jeopardy ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... of eighteen, the young Count had received an appointment as sub-lieutenant in a regiment of dragoons, and had made it a point of honor to follow the emigrant Princes ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... point of honor with me not to republish a story by an English author or by any foreign author. I have also made it a rule not to include more than one story by an individual author in the volume. The general and particular ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the relation was right in endeavoring to weaken such testimony; but I do not know if he flatters himself that he has succeeded, in saying that he who gave this opinion is an esprit fort, or freethinker who makes it a point of honor to be of the fashionable opinion ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... And even if you didn't, it wouldn't matter. It's naturally a case in which you and she have to see from different angles. With you it's a point of honor to stand by her; with her it's the same thing ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... when his enemy challenged it as an undue advantage. But at this time hardly anything can be conceived more horridly brutal and savage than the mode in which private quarrels were conducted in France. Those who were most jealous of the point of honor, and acquired the title of Ruffines, did not scruple to take advantage of strength, numbers, surprise, and arms, to accomplish ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... better reciprocate your confidence than by making you acquainted with the general dispositions of her Imperial Majesty in regard to the powers at war. From the commencement of hostilities, this sovereign has made it a point of honor to hold the balance perfectly equal between the different parties, taking particular care not to manifest any kind of preference, by carefully avoiding every advance, which could indicate the slightest partiality in favor of either of the belligerent ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... virtuous, dignified, nor decent. No husband ever secured his domestic happiness and honor, nor has any wife ever secured hers, by relying on it. No private claims of any sort should be founded on it: the real point of honor is to take no corrupt advantage of it. When we hear of young women being led astray and the like, we find that what has led them astray is a sedulously inculcated false notion that the relation ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... was necessary to prove the crime by competent witnesses, and the court was the judge of the credibility of these who testified, but rarely, however, was it necessary to summon witnesses, for if the accused was really guilty it was a point of honor to admit the offense and take the consequences. Thus the real responsibility resting upon the court in most cases was to determine the penalty. Usually a severe penalty was imposed which could be satisfied ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... control, is obliged to delegate the larger portion of them to his servants; selecting the lightest part for himself, he gratifies his pride by calling it also the noblest, though the distinction is factitious, there being no real difference, in point of honor or dignity, between them. Omnipotence needs no minister, and is not exhausted or wearied by the cares of a universe. Power in action is more truly sublime than power in repose; and surely it is not derogatory to divine energy ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... I said to you the other day about the internal republic, and the provinces which are under your sole government. It would be very disgraceful for the kingdom to be doing nothing while the republic is working so hard; and a queen who understands her office will make it a point of honor to banish idleness from her household; in the houses of her ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... said, "that the ruling passion of persons in that rank of life [the rank of gentleman] is 'the point of honor,' which is perpetually driving them into acts of violence apparently quite at variance with Christian piety; so that, in fact, they would be almost all of them excluded from our confessionals, had not our fathers relaxed a little ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Mr. Banks," she said, then, and her voice fluctuated softly, "but I shall do my best—I shall make it a point of honor—to sometime reimburse you." Her glance fell to the violets at her belt; she singled one from the rest and, inhaling its perfume, held it lightly ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... alarm is never a good plan to rid oneself of a spirited young man. My obstinacy was but increased by what she said, and I made it a point of honor to remain. And her solicitude for my safety still more confirmed ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... better off, for he had his friends at school, and the boys at Porson's believed in Ned's innocence as a point of honor. In the first place, it would have been something like a reflection upon the whole school to admit the possibility of its first boy being a murderer; in the second, Ned had been generally popular among them, he was their best cricketer, the life ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... this matter; and Frank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may be so-and-so, but by Jove my wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood drawn too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were so jealous about the point of honor in those days; and gentlemen of good birth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their family coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence he returned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had of his mother, near to Winchester, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... word to advance was given. The line was about five miles long at first, and there was a man or a boy every thirty or forty yards. The buggies and riders kept perforce almost entirely to the roads; but the beaters were supposed, as a point of honor, to face everything, and keep the front unbroken. The advance was roughly in three sides of a square. Each man made as much noise as he could, and threshed every bush in his path. A number of Rabbits hopped out. Some made for the lines, to be ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the choosing was over, and the school ranged in two opposing lines, with Margaret and Thomas at the head of their respective forces, and little Jessie MacRae and Johnnie Aird, with a single big curl on the top of his head, at the foot. It was a point of honor that no blood should be drawn at the first round. To Thomas, who had second choice, fell the right of giving the first word. So to little Jessie, at the foot, he ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... so violently? Oh, I see. A point of honor on which I quite agree with you. But you are not going under, Donald. We will see to that. I am not a wealthy man, as you know. There have been times recently when the future looked very dark. But this little lady has steered us ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... and hand in hand the brothers stood upon the ledge. "It's a right smart chance beyond the Ferry, and a piece beyond the Mill, too," said Rand, shading his eyes with his hand, from force of habit. "It's in the woods where—" He would have added where he met Mornie; but it was a point of honor with the twins, after reconciliation, not to allude to any topic ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you smother discussion on the duelling law? There is not a point in the affairs of this nation more important than this very practice of duelling,—considered as a point of honor in one part of the Union, and a point of infamy in another,—with its consequences. I say there is no more important subject that can go forth, North and South, East and West; and I therefore take my issue upon it. I have come here determined to do so between the different portions of this ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... certainly thought him his friend, and he'—the defendant—'therefore did disclose all this to him. Gentlemen, one has only to say further that if this point of honor was to be so sacred as that a man who comes by knowledge of this sort from an offender was not to be at liberty to disclose it the most atrocious criminals would every day escape punishment; and therefore ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... son is very quick and very sensitive, and very nice on a point of honor. He is the most punc-til-i-ous man you ever saw;" and Mrs. Mowbray held up her hands, lost in amazement at the conception which was in her mind of the punctiliousness of her son. "But, my dear Miss Dalton," she continued, "he is quick to forgive. He ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... kingdom or a kingdom's tribute, often a lady, or the combatants fought for "love" or the point of honor. Giants and noted champions challenge kings for their daughters (as in the fictitious parts of the Icelandic family sagas) in true archaic fashion, and in true archaic fashion the prince rescues the lady from a disgusting and evil ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... coach-house which had been transformed into a chamber, slept the orderlies beneath the apartment of their chief. This apartment, composed of four rooms, was of the utmost simplicity, harmonizing with the poverty of its occupant, who made it a point of honor not to attempt to disguise ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... so imbued and penetrated with the idea that all his language vibrated with it; and, most striking example of all, that great minister too early removed, Cavour, who, confident in the patriotic sentiment of his countrymen, adopted it as a principle and a point of honor not to govern or reform without letting the air of liberty blow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... dismissed the other Greeks, and in the undaunted resolution with which he determined himself to maintain his ground, which has always strongly excited the admiration of mankind. It was undoubtedly carrying the point of honor to a wholly unjustifiable extreme, and yet all the world, for the twenty centuries which have intervened since these transactions occurred, while they have unanimously disapproved, in theory, of the course which Leonidas pursued, have none the less ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the mate's heroic conduct became general the next day, and work on the ketch was somewhat impeded in consequence. It became a point of honor with Mr. Heard's fellow-townsmen to allude to the affair as an accident, but the romantic nature of the transaction was well understood, and full credit given to Mr. Dix for his self-denial in the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... tempest. "The Secret Agent" and "Under Western Eyes" fill the dull back streets of London and Geneva with pursuits, homicides and dynamitings. "Nostromo" is a long record of treacheries, butcheries and carnalities. "A Point of Honor" is coloured by the senseless, insatiable ferocity of Gobineau's "Renaissance." "Victory" ends with a massacre of all the chief personages, a veritable catastrophe of blood. Whenever he turns from the starker lusts to the ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... surer antidote to the poison of fraud than its detection. It is true, the fraud may be swallowed after this discovery, and perhaps even swallowed the more greedily for being a detected fraud. Men sometimes make a point of honor not to be disabused; and they had rather fall into an hundred errors than confess one. But, after all, when neither our principles nor our dispositions, nor, perhaps, our talents, enable us to encounter delusion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... d'Arthez was placed beside the princess, who, far from imitating the eccentricities of diet which many affected women display, ate her dinner with a very good appetite, making it a point of honor to seem a natural woman, without strange ways or fancies. Between two courses she took advantage of the conversation becoming general to say to d'Arthez, in a ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... civilization the intermediate class have neither the simplicity of the peasantry, nor the grandeur of the boyars; and no public opinion yet exists to keep in check this third class, whose existence is so recent, and which has lost the naivete of popular faith without having acquired the point of honor. A display of jealous feeling was also remarked between the military commanders. It is in the very nature of a despotic government to create, even in spite of itself, jealousy in those who surround it: the will of one man being able to change entirely ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... have been Made" story, but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney, like Mr. Bat Jarvis, was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighborhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the office at nine o'clock. It was a point of honor with him, a sort of daily declaration of independence, never to put in an appearance before nine-thirty. On this particular morning he was punctual to the minute, or half an hour late, whichever way you choose ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... to light the carriage lamps, and then went on up the hill. It was pitch dark when they reached the house. Inside, one of Mr. Raby's servants was on the look-out for the sound of wheels, and the visitors had no need to knock or ring; this was a point of honor with the master of the mansion; when he did invite people, the house opened its arms; even as they drove up, open flew the great hall-door, and an enormous fire inside blazed in their faces, and shot its flame beyond ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... America under the title of A Point of Honor) is a tour de force in story-telling that would have made envious Balzac. Then there is Winnie Verloc in the Secret Agent, and her cockney sentiment and rancours. She is remarkably "realised," and is a pitiful apparition at the close. The detective ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... profession, of our order, of our body, were the spirit, or anything like the spirit, of the ancient Prophets! If with us truth, charity, justice, fairness to opponents, were a passion, a doctrine, a point of honor, to be upheld with the same energy as that with which we uphold our own position and our ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... the Drum-Horse—the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars! Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had committed. I will try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse who carries the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a big piebald Waler. That is a point of honor; and a Regiment will spend anything you please on a piebald. He is beyond the ordinary laws of casting. His work is very light, and he only manoeuvres at a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can step out and look handsome, his well-being is assured. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... other hand, great importance was attached to some duties which soon became mere drudgery. Sometimes the whole detail for guard—first, second, and third relief—would make it a point of honor to sit up the entire night, and watch and listen as though the enemy might pounce upon them at any moment, and hurry them off to prison. Of course they soon learned how sweet it was, after two hours' walking of the beat, to turn in for four hours! which seemed to the sleepy ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... at last," he said, "deputed as I am to do so by Miss Lamarque. It is a point of honor with her to care for you personally in this crisis. You know Major Favraud placed you under her care; besides that, her regard for you impels this request. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... sure that we should raise a favorable impression of our new neighbor in the mind of Reverend Finch. That was, however, not my affair. I appeared to excellent advantage in the matter, as the judicious foreign lady who had insisted on making inquiries. For the rest, it was a point of honor with me—writing for a person who was blind—not to change a single word in the sentences which Lucilla dictated to me. The letter completed, I wrote the address of the house in Brighton at which Mr. Finch then happened to be ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... that the point of honor is recognized throughout the slave region, and that disputes of certain classes are frequently referred for adjustment, to the "trial by combat." It would not be appropriate for me to enter, in this letter, into a defense of the practice of duelling, nor to maintain at length, that ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... therefore, a point of honor with me, dear L., to utilise my title of Haji by entering the city, visiting the ruler, and returning in safety, after breaking ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... all these things, and they move me not. I admit the possibilities of the painting, but no more. The conduct of the Taranteens proves how high stands with them the point of honor and the sacred estimate wherein they hold an embassy; else never would they have ventured upon one like the second, after the unhappy termination of the first. I partake not of ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... was a point of honor with the Indian warrior to redeem his word, when pledged to return and meet his death at a given hour, so was it a point of characteristic pride to show no womanish impatience, but to reappear as nearly as possible at the appointed moment. It was well not to exceed the grace accorded by the generosity ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... ancient gentlemen of Savoy, paternally and maternally," he rebuked his assailants in manly strain. "Even had it been that I was without nobility of birth," said he, "I should be none the less or more a virtuous or honest man; nor can any one reproach me with having failed in the point of honor or duty. What greater folly than to boast of the virtue or gallantry of others, as do many nobles who, having neither a grain of virtue in their souls nor a drop of wisdom in their brains, are entirely useless to their country! Yet there are such men, who, because their ancestors ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... shall explain it," replied Purcel; "the sum I can command is one of four hundred, which is at this moment virtually lent upon excellent security, at an interest of eight per cent. The loan is certainly not legally completed, but morally and in point of honor it is. Now, if I lend this money to you, sir, I must break my word and verbal agreement to the party ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... The young man, I had remarked, was proud, firm, jealous of the point of honor, and, from my observation of him, quite likely to resent to the bitter end what he deemed a slight or an injustice. The girl, I knew, was quite as high-spirited as young Murchison. I feared she was not so just, and hoped ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... vicinity of an old vault, before which there, was a grass plot, the affair was settled in the presence of the whole school, with natural weapons, by wrestling and pounding, in extreme cases also by biting and scratching. I never indeed rose to the rank of a genuine triarian, who made it a point of honor to go about the whole year with a black eye or a swollen nose, but I very soon lost the reputation for being a good child, which I owed to my mother and which up to that time had meant so much to me, and, to make up for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... still. For things are getting worse, not better, and our young women are less useful even than their mothers; while these last do not, as a rule, come near the good housekeeping ladies of olden times, who knew every secret of domestic economy, and made a point of honor of a wise and pleasant "distribution ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... educational system? Does any elementary schoolmaster accord it even an instant's consideration or respect? I do not expect the schoolmaster to hate hospitals and C.O.S. centers so much as the schoolboy's father; but does he hate them at all? Does he sympathize in the least with the poor man's point of honor against official institutions? Is it not quite certain that the ordinary elementary schoolmaster will think it not merely natural but simply conscientious to eradicate all these rugged legends of a laborious people, and on principle to preach soap and Socialism against beer and liberty? In the ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... In other times, as I said just now, I had a kind of pride in showing my enemies how inexhaustible my resources were; I felt it a point of honor to strike them with amazement, in creating millions under circumstances where they had imagined nothing but bankruptcies and failures would follow. But at the present day I am arranging my accounts with the state, with the king, with myself; and I must now become ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the Nucingens lived at the higher end of financial society, and the Baron de Nucingen made it a point of honor to treat the honest banker well. His disinterested virtue looked well in ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... done the king much more service than you ever have or can do. They have been most important agents in his restoration, and the king's obligations to them are much greater than they are to you. Besides, merely for what may be called a point of honor, for it is no more, in what an unpleasant situation will you put his majesty! At all events, Edward, recollect you do not know what are the intentions of Mr. Heatherstone; wait and see ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... of a particularly disgraceful divorce case, and he was by no means likely to disturb himself from his refined enjoyment for any less important reason than the summons of Lord Winsleigh's bell, which rang so seldom that, when it did, he made it a point of honor to answer it immediately, for, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... up by one of the opposing side. How often has it happened that a belligerent, well practised in his art, has kept his own colors out of the affair, and then boasted that they were not lost! Now, an Indian practises no such shameless expedients. His point of honor is not a bit of rag, but a bit of his skin. He shaves his head because the hair encumbers him; but he chivalrously leaves a scalp-lock, by the aid of which his conquerors can the more easily carry away the coveted ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... occurred very seldom. In "The Merchant of Venice" I found that Henry Irving's Shylock necessitated an entire revision of my conception of Portia, especially in the trial scene, but here there was no point of honor involved. I had considered, and still am of the same mind, that Portia in the trial scene ought to be very quiet. I saw an extraordinary effect in this quietness. But as Henry's Shylock was quiet, I had to give it up. His heroic ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... resolution with which she was defended until destroyed, converted the disasters of this part of the day into a species of triumph." "The Americans," says a contemporary British writer, "chiefly gloried in the dangerous attention paid by Arnold to a nice point of honor, in keeping his flag flying, and not quitting his galley till she was in flames, lest the enemy should have boarded ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... not stop to argue this point of honor, and show its absurdity by pointing out that it is not an unusual practice with nations at war. It is a sufficient commentary upon this assumption of punctiliousness that the paper went on to say that ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... wore a rich surcoat of brocade over his mail, through which the habit and emblems of the knightly order of St. James, conferred on him just before his departure from Castile, were conspicuous.20 It was a point of honor with the chivalry of the period to court danger by displaying their rank in the splendor of their military attire and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... behind the counter served him, too, in regular turn; and Dick felt it a point of honor to empty the half-shell before him as quickly as any of the rest. There was no delay about that, anywhere along that ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... find it, the method of conserving it in the present owner, and of translating it from man to man, are entirely derived from society; and are some of those civil advantages, in exchange for which every individual has resigned a part of his natural liberty. The laws of England are therefore, in point of honor and justice, extremely watchful in ascertaining and protecting this right. Upon this principle the great charter[p] has declared that no freeman shall be disseised, or divested, of his freehold, or of his liberties, or free customs, but ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... be a point of honor, as you might say, for Sam to convince that guy. He told me he never wanted anything so much in his life as for Mark Dennen to give in. It was a hot afternoon, and he'd come aboard that boat for a rest, but he peeled off his collar and started in. He gave Mark Dennen the ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... which is imposed upon them, and much more, without any difficulty. If some natives in some of the villages decamp in order to avoid paying the tribute, as is stated in the "Opinion," it is not on account of any lack of means, but because the natives are spirited, and make it a point of honor to pay the tribute only when forced. They like to be compelled to do so. This is not the case with all of them, but only with some who, after debaucheries and guzzling of wine, come to the Spaniards, and say that they have nothing wherewith to pay the tribute. This is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... impenetrable iron, and ride about in iron prisons, fearfully peeping at their enemies through little slits and gimlet-holes. The unprotected breast of a private soldier must have shamed his leaders in those days. The point of honor is very different now. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... animosity home to their families and their friends. They tell them their own stories, in their own artless, and sometimes exaggerated way; and these are reported with, probably, high coloring; whereas, I have made it a point of honor, a matter of conscience, and a rule of justice, to adhere to truth; and am contented that the British reader should say all that fairness admits, to soften down the coloring of some of the pictures of British ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... troops, and committed fearful ravages. One thing, however, must be said, in justice to the reckless and violent men who commanded these bands, and that is, that they did not send their poor, helpless followers, the common soldiers, into a danger which they kept out of themselves. It was a point of honor with them to take the foremost rank, and to expose themselves fully at all times to the worst dangers of the combat. It is true that the knights and nobles were better protected by their armor than the soldiers. They were ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... is innocent; he has told me who the guilty person is! He was ready to die for a false point of honor—he is a Corsican! Go and beg the public prosecutor to grant me five minutes' interview. Monsieur de Granville cannot refuse to listen at once to a Spanish priest who is suffering so cruelly from the blunders ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... he murmured. "Of course, you are quite right. It had not occurred to me in that light before. True, the report was intended only for my own pleasure in later years, but that does not alter the nice point of honor." ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... own errors; but he had not spoken for hers. I did not dare to admit the impression which he evidently wished to convey of her entire innocence, not only from the practices, but the very thoughts of guilt. It is in compliance with a point of honor that the professed libertine yet endeavors to excuse and save the partner of his wantonness. In this light I regarded all those parts of his narrative which went to extenuate her conduct. There was one part of her conduct, indeed, which, as it exceeded his ability to account for, was beyond ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... I cannot forget my blood. I am an Englishwoman. I come of a family that has chosen exile rather than yield a point of honor that involved the crown. I have been bred to that idea of country, nurtured on it. Could I stay with you and see you work against my people? If I were a different sort of woman; if I were the gentle girl that you should marry,—one who knew no life but flattery and courts, like ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... a serious misgiving. Would husband and wife ever meet? He evidently looked on her as Madame Raynal, and made it a point of honor to ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... see you are like all men, if they pledge their word to another man, who is a match for them, they consider it a point of honor to keep it, but if it is a woman, then they do not keep it, and boast ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... their countrymen on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered to join him in his escape. These men the Khan would probably find himself obliged to countenance in their project; so that it became a point of honor with Weseloff to conceal their intentions, and therefore to accomplish the evasion from the camp, (of which the first steps only would be hazardous,) without risking the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... stirred our conceit," said Petit-Claud; "we made it a point of honor to get up a subscription, and we will have a tremendous affair for you. The masters and the headmaster will be there, and, at the present rate, we shall, no doubt, have the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... smile at the old foolishness that Mary watched the loaded wagon go lumbering by. She had wished for a speedy and favorable reply to the letter she was about to post. It had been a point of honor with Hazel and herself whenever the other came running up, significantly tapping mute lips with an impatient forefinger, to ask, "Do you love candy?" or "Do you like peaches?" recognizing the necessity of some question to which the liberated little tongue could respond with ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... father's words. His face now expressed real indignation, for he spoke the truth. One day, he had had the idea of killing himself—an ephemeral fantasy; people of his stamp are too cowardly to resolve coldly and without witnesses upon death, which they will boldly meet in a duel through a point of honor. He cried, then, in a tone of truth, "I have fallen very low, but at least not so low as that, my father! It was for myself I ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... had been too late to go with the Milrays, but she felt bound to own her decision when she reached it; and Mrs. Milray, whatever her real wish was, made it a point of honor to help get Mrs. Lander berths on her steamer. It did not require much effort; there are plenty of berths for the latest-comers on a winter passage, and Clementina found herself the fellow passenger ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her the propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known, and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary to that which she wanted,—because it was a point of honor with Mr. Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on beyond a day or two it ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... fattened and clad, to sit together here in comfort and carry on this discourse, it does, indeed, put our relation to the universe in a more solemn light. "Does not," as a young Amherst philosopher (Xenos Clark, now dead) once wrote, "the acceptance of a happy life upon such terms involve a point of honor?" Are we not bound to take some suffering upon ourselves, to do some self-denying service with our lives, in return for all those lives upon which ours are built? To hear this question is to answer it in but one possible way, if one have a normally ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... served as a settee, and were furnished periodically by the man who brought the fire fagots. Now and again the box would, by the carelessness of the functionary called "the school-groom," be left open, and it was then considered a point of honor on the part of an under boy to promptly avail himself of the opportunity to "skin" the rods—i.e. draw them through a piece of stuff in such a way as to take the buds off, after which they hurt ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... thirst for money, its effects are seen over the whole moral and intellectual character of the people. It constitutes wealth as the standard of worth, and all the noblest qualities of the head and the heart are despised in the comparison. As wealth is the point of honor, it must be sought at every hazard, and the mortifying occurrences of the last twenty years, the dishonest bankruptcies, the numerous forgeries, perpetrated by the first people in social position, on a scale never known ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... soldier of Earth to kill a helpless prisoner," he said briefly. "We cannot understand it, but we must not attempt to sway him in any point of honor." ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... indignation upon the profaneness of the duel, having its rise in this irrational point of honor. Are you aware that you indulge the same sentiment on a gigantic scale, when you recognize this very point of honor as a proper apology for war? We have already seen that justice is in no respect promoted by war. Is true honor promoted ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... Moscow. The first word of Napoleon to Mortier, whom he had named governor of Moscow, was "no pillage!" But this point of honor had to be abandoned. The 100 thousand men who had entered were troops of the elite, but they came starving at the end of their adventurous expedition. During the first days they walked the streets ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... landing wharf at Zanzibar. Passengers have to submit their persons into the arms of loud-lunged Swahili longshoremen, who recognize one sole and only point of honor: neither passenger nor luggage shall be ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... as in other towns, was found to be disloyal, and in sympathy with the rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and the men who had a stake in the country generally professed acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The necessity of strict watch upon ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... curiosity emerges, which, familiar and intelligible as it is, is none the less a curiosity. So far from still higher wages for well-paid workpeople being regarded in the world of manual labor as detrimental to the interests of other workpeople, it has become almost a point of honor to believe the contrary. A wage dispute in a particular trade is conceived as an engagement in a far-flung battle between Capital and Labor, in which success at any part of the line will facilitate the victory of the whole army. ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... a few days Katharina had still been a dependent and docile child, who had made it a point of honor to obey instantly, not only her mother's lightest word, but Dame Neforis, too; and, since her own Greek instructress had been dismissed, even the acid Eudoxia. She had never concealed from her mother, or the worthy teacher whom she had truly loved, the smallest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I do? I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... feudal days, in the good old times Of feudal virtues and feudal crimes, A point of honor they'd make in it, Though sure in the end their flag must fall, To show stout fight and never to call A truce till they saw a hole in the wall Or a larder ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... time (December, 1768) there appears to have been but little difference of opinion among the prominent Loyalists as to the necessity of an extraordinary exercise of authority in some way, both as a point of honor and as a measure of precaution for the future. On this point Hutchinson was as decided as Bernard, though he was reticent as to the precise shape it ought to take. It would not do, he said, to leave the Colonies to the loose principle, espoused by so many, that they were subject to laws that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... said Jane, lifting clear untroubled eyes to his face. "You see that was part of father's obligation; it was a point of honor not to give that man's shame away to his wife—he had promised—and then, the man, was dead—he could not be brought to justice; what good ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... refused to consent to the experiment. He said the boy had suffered enough already for concealing the truth, even if he was guilty, seeing that he could have no motive but a mistaken point of honor ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... his face assumed the grave expression of a man who is arguing a point of honor in his own mind. Then, at the end of a few seconds, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... condition that he would abandon the profession of an actor; but the reason which he assigned for declining to purchase the honor at the rate proposed is worthy of being mentioned. "What can induce you to hesitate?" said Boileau, charged by the Academicians with the negotiation. "A point of honor," replied Moliere. "Now," answered his friend, "what honor can lie in blacking your face with mustachios and assuming the burlesque disguise of a buffoon, in order to be cudgelled on a public stage?" "The point of honor," ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... confederacy formed against us, on account of the universal abhorrence of our conduct which prevailed in every state, and almost in every house in India. Mr. Hastings was obliged to pretend some sort of acquiescence in this general and rational desire. He therefore consented, in order to satisfy the point of honor of the Mahrattas, that an article should be inserted to admit Hyder Ali to accede to the pacification. But observe, Sir, the spirit of this man,—which, if it were not made manifest by a thousand things, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... her wits about her—her point of honor in encounters with strange young men). Wicked people get over that ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... fidelity, loyalty; incorruption, incorruptibility. trustworthiness &c. adj.; truth, candor, singleness of heart; veracity &c. 543; tender conscience &c. (sense of duty) 926. punctilio, delicacy, nicety; scrupulosity, scrupulousness &c. adj.; scruple; point, point of honor; punctuality. dignity &c, (repute) 873; respectability, respectableness &c. adj; gentilhomme[Fr], gentleman; man of honor, man of his word; fidus Achates[Lat][obs3], preux chevalier[Fr], galantuomo[It]; truepenny[obs3], trump, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... person is sacred, and if in the execution of his duty he strikes even a chief of the second class, he cannot be punished for this salutary insolence. In general he accompanies the person of the chief, and when ordered to any duty, however dangerous, it is a point of honor rather to die than to refuse obedience. Thus, when they attempted to stop us yesterday, the chief ordered one of these men to take possession of the boat; he immediately put his arms around the mast, and, as we understood, no force except ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... riding at anchor as though waiting to go to sea. Instantly accepting the invitation, Captain Lawrence hoisted colors, fired a gun, and mustered his crew. In this ceremonious fashion, as gentlemen were wont to meet with pistols to dispute some point of honor, did the Chesapeake sail out to fight the waiting Shannon. The news spread fast and wide and thousands of people, as though they were bound to the theater, hastened to the heights of Malden, to Nahant, and to the headlands of Salem and Marblehead, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... is that of a lover, and Achilles' that of a warrior. Agamemnon speaks of Chryseis as a beauty whom he values too much to resign. Achilles treats Briseis as a slave, whom he is anxious to preserve in point of honor, and as a testimony of his glory. Hence he mentions her only as "his spoil," "the reward of war," etc.; accordingly he relinquishes her not in grief for a favorite whom he loses, but in sullenness for the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Shakspere, nor was it altogether so in Beaumont and Fletcher. Their gentlemen are gallant and passionate lovers, gay cavaliers, generous, courageous, courteous—according to the fashion of their times—and sensitive on the point of honor. They are far superior to the cold-blooded rakes of Dryden and the Restoration comedy. Still the manners and language in Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are extremely licentious, and it is not hard to sympathize with the objections ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... ruffian and desperate, as I had seen. My own strength and activity had been failing for some time now. Obviously I could not meet him on equal terms. Moreover, I must not allow him to injure me. That was a point of honor. This was to be no trial by wager of battle. It was to be an execution. Any retaliation by him would destroy the formal, punitive character which was the essence ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... weary as applied descriptively to a village street is almost nonsense. These defects are not important, but they arrest attention as being at the very opening of the story. And it must be confessed that for a chapter or two "A Point of Honor" is rather slight in texture and commonplace. It is, however, interesting enough to lead us on, and the reader who holds his way into the third or fourth chapter is repaid. The authoress then warms up to her work, and begins to show her quality, which is that of a true literary ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... we call to mind, too, that during the Administration of Mr. Addington, though agreeing wholly with the Ministry and differing with the Whigs, he even then refused to profit by a position so favorable to his interests, and submitted, like certain religionists, from a point of honor, to suffer for a faith in which he did not believe—it seems impossible not to concede that even to the obligations of Party he was as faithful as could be expected from a spirit that so far outgrew its limits, and, in paying the tax of fidelity ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... pleasure. For the last hundred and fifty years, not a single day has passed without some member of my family risking his life—or her life. It's a point of honor with us to keep up that tradition. Usually several of us do it; but it happens that just at this moment it is being kept up by one of my brothers only. Early this morning I got a telegram from him to say that ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... got the latest news of the countryside for ten miles around. Wireless has little on the way things ran about among the plantations. It was a point of honor among the black men to have wives or sweethearts away from home. This meant running about nightly—consequently cross-currents of gossip lively enough to make the yellowest journal turn green with envy. Mammy was a trifle apologetic over having a husband no further off than the next neighbor's. ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... play out of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have proceeded on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honor. ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... it a point of honor not to be impressed by him). Do I look like it? My name is Valentine. I did ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw |
