"Probity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I would think none save innocent man should do, and looked the Queen straight in the face. He was not witched with her gramary; and soothly I count in all that hall he was the sole noble that escaped the spell. A brave man was he, of great probity, prudent in council, valiant in war: maybe something too readily swayed by other folks (the Queen except), where he loved them (which he did not her), and from this last point came all his ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... forever discredited. But, to the despair of reformers, in 1874 Tammany returned to power, electing its candidate for mayor by over 9000 majority. The new boss who maneuvered this rapid resurrection was John Kelly, a stone-mason, known among his Irish followers as "Honest John." Besides the political probity which the occasion demanded, he possessed a capacity for knowing men and sensing public opinion. This enabled him to lift the prostrate organization. He persuaded such men as Samuel J. Tilden, the distinguished lawyer, August Belmont, ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... king, and can only be tried by my peers and by the pope, who is the head of Christendom. I might refuse to plead, refuse to take any part in this assembly, and appeal to the pope, who alone has power to punish kings. But I will waive my rights. I rely upon the honour and probity of the barons of Germany. I have done no man wrong, and would appear as fearlessly before an assembly of peasants as before a gathering of barons. Such faults as I may have, and none are without them, are not such as those with which I am charged. I have slain many men in anger, but ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Open those great, those virtuous pages of the unflinching reporter of man; the soul all truth and daylight, all candor, probity, sincerity, reality, eyesight. A few glances will suffice. Cant and vice and sniffle have groaned over these ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... not forgotten him; but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received; and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister's, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Nor was it only in Brussels that he was treated with respect and listened to with attention. The statesmen who governed England—Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Lord Melbourne—had learnt to put a high value upon his probity and his intelligence. "He is one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw," said Lord Melbourne, "the most discreet man, the most well-judging, and most cool man." And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Heaven has made it quite impossible Damis and you should live together here, Were it not better you should quietly And honourably withdraw, than let the son Be driven out for your sake, dead against All reason? 'Twould be giving, sir, believe me, Such an example of your probity ... ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... could for her; we offered the money to archdeacons and other men of pronounced probity; and finally we invested it in the Blanktown Electric Light Company. Blanktown is not its real name, of course; but I do not like to let out any information which may be of value to Celia's enemies—the wicked ones who are trying to snatch her little fortune from ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... each island its holy place. In Cattaro, till the beginning of the nineteenth century, churches and convents occupied a third of the area within the walls, and each nobleman had his private chapel in his villa. The Bocchesi were noted for their honourable fidelity to their word once given, and this probity is still recognised in their commercial dealings. The married sons usually live in the house till the father's death; then the property is divided, and each takes his own house. If the mother is alive she lives with the eldest son. The house master divides ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... me conduct him to my father's lodgings, which I gladly did. My father, as it happened, had met Captain Downing, and knew him to be a man of probity. Thanking the Captain for his offer, he without hesitation gave me leave to accompany him as cabin-boy. It did not take long to get an outfit, and bidding my old father and my kind mother and brothers and sisters farewell, I went on board the Rainbow. ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... him. If any one man in the whole countryside bore a reputation of simple probity, it was Doctor Unonius. Impossible to connect him with tricks to defraud the Revenue! And yet had not the young riding-officer distinctly seen Landaveddy show and anon eclipse a light, and in such a fashion that it could only be interpreted ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... limb was supplied by a wooden one; and industry, temperance, probity, and zeal, supplied the place of a regiment of legs, when employed to prop up a lazy and ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... over again, and he received from his confidant assurance upon assurance of secrecy and unlimited devotion. And up to the period of Allcraft's return from France, the gentleman had every reason to rely upon the probity and good faith of his associate; nor in fact had he less reason after his return. Were it not that "the thief doth fear each bush an officer," he had no cause whatever to suspect or tremble: his mind, for any actual danger, might have been at rest. But what did he behold? Why, Planner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... owned he was in the right, and the discourse took a more general turn. Mr Serle passed the evening with us at our lodgings; and appeared to be intelligent, and even entertaining; but his disposition was rather of a melancholy hue. My uncle says he is a man of uncommon parts, and unquestioned probity: that his fortune, which was originally small, has been greatly hurt by a romantic spirit of generosity, which he has often displayed, even at the expence of his discretion, in favour of worthless individuals ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... an extraordinary and very valuable man, much admired by the gentry; even those of the best quality, and by all others of the more inferior rank, that had any manner of regard for probity, sagacity, diligence, and humility. I say humility, because, though he was so much famed for his knowledge, and might, therefore, have lived very reputably without his trade, yet he continued it to his death, not thinking it to be at all beneath him. Mr. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... De Monts and likewise to President Jeannin, [73] a man venerable with age, distinguished for his wisdom and probity, and at this time having under his control the finances of the kingdom. They both pronounced it ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... ones. Be an honest, free-hearted, companionable girl, and put sentimentality out of mind. You can have many such friends, and by and by, out of these you will probably find one whom you admire more and more as time goes on. You hear his sentiments always expressed in favor of truth and probity. You come to know something of his business principles, you see his courtesy to old and young, you learn of his home, his family, his social position, and out of this intimate knowledge there springs the attachment, blended with deep respect, which assures you that he is worthy of ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... Second, King of Navarre, and afterward to Jane, daughter of that king, who married Antony of Bourbon, purchased the estate of Montesquieu for the sum of ten thousand livres, which this princess gave him by an authentic deed, as a reward for his probity and services. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... world you rove, Thus uphold your banners; Give these reasons why you prove Hearts of men and manners: "To reprove the reprobate, Probity approving, Improbate from approbate To remove, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... romance, and more honourably distinguished by the generosity with which he pleaded for the unfortunate, and by the intrepidity with which he defied the wicked and powerful. Two persons whose talents were not brilliant, but who enjoyed a high reputation for probity and public spirit, Petion and Roland, lent the whole weight of their names to the Girondist connection. The wife of Roland brought to the deliberations of her husband's friends masculine courage and force ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and half-deceiving nature, the moral hybrid. Chiappino comes before us as a much-professing yet apparently little-performing person, moody and complaining, envious of his friend Luitolfo's better fortune, a soured man and a discontented patriot. But he is quite sure of his own complete probity. He declaims bitterly against his fellow-townsmen, his friend, and the woman whom he loves; all of whom, he asseverates, treat him unjustly, and as he never could, by any possibility, treat them. While he is thus protesting to Eulalia, his friend's betrothed, to whom for the first time he avows ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the six first centuries, the prodigies of the Lives of the Saints are noticed by numerous authors of all countries, whose talents, learning, probity, holiness, and dignity, render them respectable to the most searching critics. They are supported by incontrovertible evidence, by juridical depositions, by authentic acts, and by splendid monuments which have been erected to their memory ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... intimate to Duchambon, the Governor of Louisburgh, that his supplies had been cut off, Duchambon might think of capitulation. But unfortunately the French were prejudiced against the saints, and would not believe them under oath. But when probity fails, a little ingenuity and artifice will do quite as well. The chief of the expedition was equal to the emergency. He took the Marquis of Stronghouse to the different ships on the station, where the French prisoners ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... impossible to her, for his father had been a man of exceptional probity and, without self-flattery, she knew that she herself was the most transparently honest person on earth. As the boy grew older his opportunities for showing this fatal deficiency increased. Whatever she said or did, and however sweetly he accepted her persuasions ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... his diocese which he had brought back into the bosom of the True Church, cheerfully agreed to the proposal. In answer to the remonstrances of his friends, and especially of one gentleman of Belley, a man of the greatest probity and piety, who painted the Protestant ministers in the blackest colours, and told the Bishop that insults would literally be heaped upon him, he replied, "Well, that is exactly what we want; this contempt is just what I ask. For how great is the glory to Himself that God will derive from my confusion!" ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... "A man of so rare an honesty must not be thought of in the plural. Colbert's talent, probity, and honour constitute a phoenix that appears once in a century; and, given those rare qualities in the man, it needs a Richelieu to inspire the minister, and a Mazarin to teach him his craft, and to prepare him for double-dealing in others which his own direct mind could never have imagined. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... honesty, probity, truth, duty, honor, purity, uprightness, excellence, integrity, rectitude, virtuousness, faithfulness, justice, righteousness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... quote the following from The Secret History of the Calves-head Club: or the Republican Unmasqu'd, 4to., 1703. The author is relating what was told him by "a certain active Whigg, who, in all other respects, was a man of probity enough." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... most truly the first Earl of Mar, of the house of Erskine, was his own probity, loyalty, and patriotism. Destined originally to the church, John, properly sixth Earl of Mar, carried into public life those virtues which would have adorned the career of a private individual. In the melancholy interest of Queen Mary's ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... Instruction, was undoubtedly the person who had availed himself of the list in which my name was said to figure, for the purpose of bringing an accusation against my honor. He was himself a man of probity, but one who, in the violence of his prejudices and the acerbity of his disposition, could hardly stop short of actions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... room. The well-known character of Colonel Mannering at once disposed this gentleman, who was a man of intelligence and probity, to be open and confidential. He explained the advantages and disadvantages of the property. 'It was settled,' he said, 'the greater part of it at least, upon heirs-male, and the purchaser would have the privilege of retaining in his hands a large proportion of the ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... upon the island of Hispaniola; but after they had formed settlements and established themselves so firmly upon Tortuga, the French West India company took them under the aegis of the lilies for protection; and M. Ogeron, 'a man of probity and understanding,' was sent from the parent country to govern them. With the arrival of the new governor the domestic relations of the buccaneers underwent a material change, for the former brought many women with him—fit persons, from the past profligacy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... grieved at my distrusting him. My faith in his probity was, he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. I dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly determined that the man's good name should be cleared. The crocodile partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... him from their various modes of existence and from their diverse manner of acting. This experience furnishes him with the ideas of virtue and of vice, of justice and of injustice, of goodness and of wickedness, of decency and of indecency, of probity and of knavery: In short, he learns to form a judgment of men—to estimate their actions—to distinguish the various sentiments excited in them, according to the diversity of those effects which they make him experience. It is upon the necessary diversity of these effects that ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the parish wherein Mr Selvyn dwelt was a gentleman of great learning and strict probity. He had every virtue in the most amiable degree, and a gentleness and humility of mind which is the most agreeable characteristic of his profession. He had a strong sense of the duties of his function and dedicated his whole time to the performance of them. He did not think his instructions should ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... mercenary advantages than any significations of honor, he must waive, and should be content with the ordinary proportion of such rewards. "I have only," said he "one special grace to beg, and this I hope you will not deny me. There was a certain hospitable friend of mine among the Volscians, a man of probity and virtue, who is become a prisoner, and from former wealth and freedom is now reduced to servitude. Among his many misfortunes let my intercession redeem him from the one of being sold as a common ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... his spells of doubting the probity of Tomaso's brother; of secretly wondering whether the story of the plane might not be a ruse to lure him away from Sinkhole. But then, how would Tomaso or his brother know that Johnny would care anything about whether an airplane "sat" over in Mexico within riding distance of the Border? ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... business. Another says, "In whatever enterprise Mr. Wallace has been engaged, he has not only been fortunate in its pecuniary interests, but also in the speedy command of the confidence and respect of his associates. True moral principles have been united with unquestioned probity, business tact, and liberal, intelligent management." He has won a large fortune, without parting with his honesty in earning a single dollar. As his property has increased, his generous spirit has seen larger opportunities and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... not really wish for an alliance between Prussia and France, he at least wished that people should dread such an alliance. A man cannot frighten his friends by the fear he will rob them, and at the same time enjoy the reputation for strict probity. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... militkaptito. Private privata. Privateer marrabisto. Privation senigo. Privilege privilegio. Privily sekrete. Prize premio. Prize sxati. Probable kredinda—ebla. Probability kredebleco, kredindeco, igxebleco. Probation provtempo. Probationer novico. Probe sondi, esplori. Probity honesteco. Problem problemo. Proboscis rostro. Proceed procedi. Proceedings (law) proceso—ado. Proceeding procedo. Procession procesio. Process procedo, rimedo. Proclaim proklami. Procrastinate prokrasti. Procure ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... caucus has far less share than in any part of the three kingdoms. They have behind them the credentials of popular election which are not possessed by a single one of the self-constituted group of critics who assail them; and one need only say that vague, unfounded charges as to political probity, in no instance substantiated by a single shred of proof, do not redound to the credit ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... came out into the entrance, and saw the little girl with some displeasure. She was kind and charitable, but she did not love beggars and vagabonds, and this half-naked female tatterdemalion offended her sense of decency and probity, and her pride of sex. She was herself a stately ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... tobacco, &c. The penalties at one time were only the forfeiture of the goods seized, and if one vessel's cargo escaped out of two or three, it was a profitable trade. The measures of Government were then thought to be so stringent and despotic, that men of principle, of probity, and integrity in all other respects, manifested great obliquity of vision in viewing the traffic in smuggled goods, and felt no compunctious visitings in embarking in that trade. In the better class of houses in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... to punish.'[410] He endeavours to give a rather more precise distinction by subdividing 'ethics in general' into three classes. Duty may be to oneself, that is 'prudence'; or to one's neighbour negatively, that is 'probity'; or to one's neighbour positively, that is 'benevolence.'[411] Duties of the first class must be left chiefly to the individual, because he is the best judge of his own interest. Duties of the third class again are generally too vague to be ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... the hand towards the window he sought to hide the embarrassment, the slight flush which came to him each time that he thus excused his son; unwilling as he was to tell the true reason, the scruple of probity which had made him obstinately cling to his bare ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the Government of Austria-Hungary touching the representation of the United States at Vienna. Having under my constitutional prerogative appointed an estimable citizen of unimpeached probity and competence as minister at that court, the Government of Austria-Hungary invited this Government to take cognizance of certain exceptions, based upon allegations against the personal acceptability of Mr. Keiley, the appointed envoy, asking that in view thereof the appointment should be withdrawn. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... is honoured, trade is esteemed, and the Japan of to-day is convinced of the fact that on her commerce, trade, and industries the future of the country largely depends. Men of the highest rank, men of the greatest culture, men of the deepest probity are now embarked in trade and commerce in Japan; the whole moral atmosphere connected with trade has changed, and there are at the present time no more honourable men in the whole commercial world than those of Japan. In this matter there has undoubtedly been an enormous advance ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... wisely declined that too. It was in Brandenburg, by what he silently founded there, that he did his chief benefit to Germany and mankind. He understood the noble art of governing men; had in him the justness, clearness, valor, and patience needed for that. A man of sterling probity, for one thing. Which indeed is the first requisite in said art:—if you will have your laws obeyed without mutiny, see well that they be pieces of God Almighty's law; otherwise all the artillery in the world will not ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... supreme tribunal of Burgundy, and minister of state, and was recognised as one of the ablest jurists and most skilful politicians in the kingdom. An elderly man, with a tall, serene forehead, a large dark eye and a long grey beard, he presented an image of vast wisdom and reverend probity. He possessed—an especial treasure for a statesman in that plotting age—a singularly honest visage. Never was that face more guileless, never was his heart more completely worn upon his sleeve, than when he was harbouring the deepest ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... absolutely decline to touch divorce and matrimonial cases of any sort. It does not do a detective agency any good to have its men constantly upon the witness stand subject to attack, with a consequent possible reflection upon their probity of character or truthfulness. Moreover, a good detective is too valuable a person to be wasting his time in the court-room. In the ordinary divorce case the detective, having procured evidence, is ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... advantage of a polite education, she became eminent in the arts of poetry and painting, and had her life been prolonged, she might probably have excelled most of the prosession in both[1]. Mr. Dryden is quite lavish in her praise; and we are assured by other cotemporary writers of good probity, that he has done no violence to truth in the most heightened strains of his panegyric: let him be voucher ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... is a man of Genius, the other is a man of Virtue. It is ridiculous to say, 'I will be a man of Genius;' it is honest to say, 'I will be a man of Virtue.' Which of these depends upon ourselves? Which can we accomplish by our will? To be Genius? No. To be Probity? Yes. The attainment of Genius is not possible; the attainment of Probity is a possibility. And what could I revive of Napoleon? One sole thing—a crime. Truly a worthy ambition! Why should I be considered man? The Republic being established, I am not a great man, I shall ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... Foe a dauntless Front he reared, Ne'er from his lips was aught assuming heard; Modest, though brave; though firm, in manners mild, Strong in resolve, though guileless as a child; To honor true, in probity correct; To falsehood [stern] and urgent to detect; To party strange, to calumny a foe; The good Samaritan to sons of woe; At a late hour he heard the fatal call, Obeyed and died, wept ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... or two after the Quilp tea-party at the Wilderness, Mr Swiveller walked into Sampson Brass's office at the usual hour, and being alone in that Temple of Probity, placed his hat upon the desk, and taking from his pocket a small parcel of black crape, applied himself to folding and pinning the same upon it, after the manner of a hatband. Having completed the construction of this appendage, he surveyed ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... victoria, and becomes more and more the familiar bosom friend of the bank manager. I might go on to give a score of examples showing how innocent rate-payers are fleeced by barefaced robbers, but the catalogue would be only wearisome. Let any man of probity venture to force his way into one of these dens of thieves and see how he will fare! It is a comic thing that the gangs of jobbers consider that they have a prescriptive right to plunder at large, and their air of aggrieved virtue when they are ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... duty, and we conclude, by substituting a jargon of words, in the room of things. Our own conscience is the most enlightened philosopher. There is no need of being acquainted with Tully's offices, to make a man of probity: and perhaps the most virtuous woman in the world is the least acquainted with the definition of virtue. But it is no less true, than an improved understanding only can render society agreeable; ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... history be started, then if a man be taken for honest, his word will pass for attestation without further assurance; but if his veracity or probity be doubted, his oath will not be relied on, especially when he doth obtrude it. For it was no less truly than acutely said by the old poet, [Greek], "The man doth not get credit from an oath, but an ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... education are followed in the employment of his time, in the routine of his lessons; to let no one save persons worthy of confidence come near him; to ward off all dangers, and notify the King of the least indisposition,—such is the duty of the governor. It requires more prudence than learning, more probity than genius. M. de Damas was a royalist too tried, too fervent a Christian, for his nomination not to provoke many murmurs. His place, moreover, had been desired by so many people, that there was no lack of those who were displeased and jealous. There was a general outcry over ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... banker. Ah! it was because they were both honest men. Yes, it was like a wholesome flower coming into a close room, and then out again and heaving a whiff behind was that sailor. He left the savour of Probity and Simplicity behind, though he took the things themselves away again. Why, why couldn't he leave us what is more wanted here than even his money? His integrity: the pearl of price, that my father, whom I used to sneer at, carried to his grave; and died simple, but wise; honest, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... its answer when he recalled his written estimate of her character scribbled a few hours earlier by the light of the engine-room incandescent. If her face were not merely a fair mask of the conscientious probity it stood for, she ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... salary of two hundred and twenty dollars a year Mr. Weld brought up eleven children, kept a hospitable house, and gave liberally in charity to the poor. I fear if we were to ask some carnal-minded person, who knew not the probity of Dr. Dwight, how Mr. Weld could possibly manage to accomplish such wonderful results with so little money, that we should meet with scepticism as to the correctness of the facts alleged. Such cases were, however, too common to be doubted. My answer to the puzzling ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... believe that any eulogy of the President would equal this page on which he had depicted himself in all his greatness and all his simplicity.... History is too often only a school of immorality. It shows us the victory of force or stratagem much more than the success of justice, moderation, and probity. It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are noble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a noble and beneficent example to posterity! Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... members of Congress, among whom may be mentioned John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris, Benjamin Harrison, Elbridge Gerry, John Witherspoon, a descendant of John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, Charles Carroll, and Samuel Huntington,—all distinguished for coolness, probity, and patriotism,—that the immortal document can contain one thought or word unworthy its sacred associations, and the character of ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... While you pay me a price for my labor and for my skill as an expert, do you compensate me for the trials you put upon my probity? You pay me for what I do, but do you reward me for what I might, but do not do? Is what I do not do a marketable quantity? I think that it is. To prove it, inquire of those whose servants have behaved ill, whether they would ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... friend! At last the Protector of the Indians has the satisfaction of meeting them with authoritative messages of peace. And this was the first salutation of Dom Henri, after his forty years' experience of Spanish probity, and thirteen years of struggle for existence: "During all this war, I have not failed a day to offer up my prayers, I have fasted strictly every Friday, I have watched with care over the morals and the conduct of my subjects, I have taken measures everywhere to prevent all profligate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... person employs only his own stock in trade, there is no trust; and the credit which he may get from other people, depends, not upon the nature of the trade, but upon their opinion of his fortune, probity and prudence. The different rates of profit, therefore, in the different branches of trade, cannot arise from the different degrees of trust ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... eye-witnesses suffered all the tortures he quotes; but even Paley cannot pretend that there is a scintilla of proof of their undergoing any such trials. Thus falls the whole argument based on the "twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known," dying for the persistent assertion of "a miracle wrought before their eyes," who are used as a parallel of the apostles, as an argument against Hume. For we have not ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Sindbad perish with my own eyes, and the passengers on board saw it as well as I, and yet you tell me that you are that Sindbad? What impudence is this? To look on you, one would take you to be a man of probity; and yet you tell a horrible falsehood, in order to possess yourself of what does not belong to you. Have patience, captain, replied I; do me the favour to hear what I have to say. Very well, says he, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... according to the rule in such cases that the branch should cease its connexion with the ducal stem, and merge among the people under a new surname. K'ung Chia was Master of the Horse in Sung, and an officer of well-known loyalty and probity. Unfortunately for himself, he had a wife of surpassing beauty, of whom the chief minister of the State, by name Hwa Tu [9], happened on one occasion to get a glimpse. Determined to possess her, he ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... maxims which we have been brought up from childhood to revere and associate with the welfare of the Republic. We believe that unless a man is born virtuous, he will never acquire virtue, unless he has always lived in an environment of honesty and probity and given it his earnest attention. See with what contempt democrats trample these doctrines under foot and never stop to ask what training a man has had for public office. On the contrary, anyone who merely professes zeal in the public ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... constantly sending him little presents. But Catherine only saw, in his permission of her correspondence, kind, forgiving, and trustful affection, and she loved him tenderly: when he died, the link that bound her to her family was broken. Her brother succeeded to the trade; a man of probity and honour, but somewhat hard and unamiable. In the only letter she had received from him—the one announcing her father's death—he told her plainly, and very properly, that he could not countenance the life she led; that he had ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in this Confederacy, their Tributaries, Dependents and Allies: And the more so, as it is neither extant in Print, nor is this Part taken Notice of so fully in the Manuscript History above-mentioned. It was communicated by a Gentleman of good Understanding and Probity; one who is very well skill'd in the Indian Affairs,[2] adopted into one of their Tribes, is of their Council, and their constant Interpreter at the Philadelphia Treaties, to a Friend of his, who sent it to ...
— The Treaty Held with the Indians of the Six Nations at Philadelphia, in July 1742 • Various
... dignified fashion his grey beard. Casting his eye about, he issued orders, greeted the guests who came in, went up to those that were seated, and started conversation, reconciled persons quarrelling, but served no one—he only walked to and fro. The Jew was old, and famed everywhere for his probity; for many years he had been keeping the tavern, and no one either of the peasants or of the gentry had ever made complaint against him to his landlord. Of what should they complain? He had good drinks to ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... source of information. Everything considered, his substantial accuracy is much more striking than his partial inaccuracy. In fact, no one of his high character and disinterested zeal could write with any other purpose than to describe truly what he had seen and done. The seal of probity is set upon Champlain's writings no less than upon the record of his dealings with his employers and the king. Unselfish as to money or fame, he sought to ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... all suppose that piety in this age was confined to ecclesiastics. The Earls of Pembroke stand conspicuously amongst their fellows as men of probity, and were none the less brave because they were sincerely religious. At times, even in the midst of the fiercest raids, men found time to pray, and to do deeds of mercy. On one Friday, in the year of grace 1235, the English ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Taillebourg was afterwards established a Protestant chapel, and there were buried, after the fatal battle des Arenes, at Saintes, the four brothers Coligny, of whom d'Aubigne says, "They were similar in countenance, but still more in probity, prudence, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... to accept anything which is not suitable, even though it comes to you from heaven. I must not be made to appear, what I am not, partial in my dealings." This fiery despatch, indicating not only Michelangelo's probity, but also his attention to minute details at the advanced age of eighty-six, makes it evident that he must have been a stern overseer in the first years of his office, terrible to the "sect of Sangallo," who were bent, on their part, to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... bring, Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight, Your manners for the heart's delight; Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof, Here weave your chamber weather-proof, Forgive our harms, and condescend To man, as to a lubber friend, And, generous, teach his awkward race Courage and probity and grace! ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... companion, a gentleman for whom he entertained a very high esteem; but one who was as much an enemy as possible to such a licentious behaviour. In another situation, our noble author would have found it a happiness to be constantly attended by a person of his honour, probity, and good sense; but the duke's strange and unaccountable conduct, rendered the best endeavours to serve him ineffectual. In a letter which that gentleman wrote to a friend in London, he concludes with a melancholy representation of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... little story which shows how keen an eye the public has for the probity of the police. A famous detective had occasion to question a veteran constable, and took him into a tea-shop to do so. At the close of the conversation he handed the officer a half-crown. A day or two later a highly respectable country vicar wrote to Scotland Yard. He ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... at the third floor, and the lady got out. Bones, his curiosity overcoming his respect for age or his appreciation of probity, followed her, and was thrilled to discover that she made straight for his office. She hesitated for a moment before that which bore the word "Private," and passed on to the outer ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... an extensive circle of acquaintance. Whole pages of the 'Court Guide' are ready to be references for him. Noblemen and gentlemen write to say there never was such a man for probity and virtue. They have known him time out of mind, and there is nothing they wouldn't do for him. Somehow, they don't give him that one pound ten he stands in need of; but perhaps it is not enough - they want to do more, and his modesty will not allow it. ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... moment's delay; and soon after her arrival in that town succeeded in finding another situation which she considered suitable. It was in the house of a master joiner, who was greatly esteemed both for skill in his profession and for general probity, and who was also clever ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... the country farmers all wished for peace. By constantly arguing with the others he gradually made them less eager for war, and at length was able to intimate to the Spartans that there were good hopes of coming to terms. They willingly believed him because of his high character for probity, and more especially because he had shown great kindness to the Spartan prisoners taken at Pylos. A truce for one year had already been arranged between them, and during this they conversed freely with one ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... treasury after Cowperwood knew he was to fail, and without Stener's consent. Also that there was danger that it would come to the ears of that very uncomfortable political organization known as the Citizens' Municipal Reform Association, of which a well-known iron-manufacturer of great probity and moral rectitude, one Skelton C. Wheat, was president. Wheat had for years been following on the trail of the dominant Republican administration in a vain attempt to bring it to a sense of some ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... funerals of their companions, which is mentioned in the account of Halsey. Some years after, an English ship touching there, the guardians faithfully discharged their trust, and put him on board with the captain, who brought up the boy with care, acting by him as became a man of probity and honor. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Duchess of Lucca has no other character but that which seems common to the Royal families of France, Spain and Naples; viz., of being very weak and priest-ridden. Lucca furnishes excellent female servants who are remarkable for their industry and probity. Their only solace is their lover or amoroso, as they term him; and when they enter into the service of any family, they always stipulate for one day in the week on which they must have liberty to visit their amoroso, or the amoroso must be ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... grandee in Portugal, generalissimo in Prussia, and duke in England. He professed the Protestant religion; was courteous and humble in his deportment; cool, penetrating, resolute, and sagacious, nor was his probity inferior to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... safest retreat, I determined to conceal myself in a wood belonging to a Mr. O'Leary, at a place called Coolmountain. I endeavoured to gain the friendship of a man in the neighbourhood, of whom I had learned the highest character for probity. It was necessary to confide in him fully; for his fidelity to his employer might induce him to betray me, if he suspected that my flight was occasioned by moral guilt. He did not disappoint me. At once he entered into all my plans, and immediately sent ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... riches that he was about to create. Judge of my surprise when I found the celebrated Burke at their head. Is it possible, then, that men may devote themselves to deep studies, possess knowledge and probity, exercise to an eminent degree oratorical powers that move the feelings, and influence political assemblies, yet sometimes be deficient in plain common-sense? Now, however, owing to the wise and important modifications ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... accommodation and ornament of the City; ROBERT MYLNE being the architect. And that there might remain to posterity a monument of this city's affection to the man who, by the strength of his genius, the steadiness of his mind, and a certain kind of happy contagion of his Probity and Spirit (under the Divine favour and fortunate auspices of GEORGE the Second) recovered, augmented, and secured the British Empire in Asia, Africa, and America, and restored the ancient reputation and influence of his country amongst the nations of Europe; the citizens of London ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... hands. This was a post of unusual responsibility for one so young, but Amos Lawrence accepted it promptly, and labored to discharge its duties faithfully. He at once established the character for probity and fairness which distinguished him through life; his simple assertion was sufficient in any matter, being received with implicit trust by all who knew him. His duties kept him constantly employed, and though he lived within a mile of his father's ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Duke of Bourbon as prime minister. He had been preceptor of the king, and was superior to all the intrigues of the court; a man of great timidity, but also a man of great probity, gentleness, and benignity. Fortunately, he was intrusted with power at a period of great domestic tranquillity, and his administration was, like that of Walpole, pacific. He projected, however, no schemes of useful reform, and made no improvements in laws or finance. But he ruled despotically, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... joined a long account of his birth and his presumed title to ancient lineage, and inserted into the bargain a panegyric of Werdet as a man of activity, intelligence, and probity, with whom his relations would be unbroken, since by this same declaration he constituted him henceforward his sole publisher. That was in July 1836. Scarcely six months after, when Werdet was threatened with a bankruptcy which was likely to involve him—a ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... effective until all the judges were men who had received a good special education and had a practical acquaintance with judicial matters. This has now been effected, and the present generation of judges are better prepared and more capable than their predecessors. On the score of probity I ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... ask a well-dressed black the way to a house, he may still reply, 'I wonder you dar 'peak me without making compliment!' The true remedy, however, is still wanting, a 'court of summary jurisdiction presided over by men of honour and probity.' [Footnote: Wanderings in West Africa, ii. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... smiling, complaisant, and gay, The world has worn th' unsocial crust away: That sullen spirit now a softness wears, And, save by fits, e'en dulness disappears: But still the matron can the man behold, Dull, selfish, hard, inanimate, and cold. A Merchant passes,—"Probity and truth, Prudence and patience, mark'd thee from thy youth." Thus she observes, but oft retains her fears For him, who now with name unstain'd appears: Nor hope relinquishes, for one who yet Is lost in error and involved in debt; For latent evil in that heart she ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... elected your first magistrate, and, against whom, the tongue of slander never moved but in the hard service of a harder master. There is another, who, for more than twenty years has been employed in the first offices in the gift of his country, and whose probity and talents are second to those of none of his contemporaries. Among these are many who must enjoy the affection and veneration of their countrymen while superior worth is regarded. Against these ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... race by their angelic charity and works for humanity, and who, being engaged in benevolent work in Bosnia, became one of my firm allies—that reports had been put in circulation in London against my probity and the trustworthiness of my correspondence, imputing to me indeed a conduct which would have excluded me from honorable society. This was the work of the pro-Turkish party, enraged by the sympathy evoked by my correspondence on behalf of the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... to myself that as long as I did nothing contrary to the respect which I owe to the traditional probity of the family I could live as I am living, and this has reassured me somewhat in regard to the ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... for ordinary purposes of business, became much more usual. During most of the seventeenth century the goldsmiths were the only bankers. On account of the strong vaults of these merchants, their habitual possession of valuable material and articles, and perhaps of their reputation for probity, persons who had money beyond their immediate needs deposited it with the goldsmiths, receiving from them usually six per cent. The goldsmiths then loaned it to merchants or to the government, obtaining for it interest at the rate of eight per cent or ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... the secrecy resorted to in consequence, were by no means bad examples in the ordinary course of life; they did to their neighbours as they would be done by, were fair and honest in their dealings, and invariably inculcated probity and a regard to truth on their son. This may appear anomalous to many of our readers, but there are many strange anomalies in this world. It may therefore be stated in a very few words, that although our little hero had every chance of eventually ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... moved as to the trial of Mr Scrobby. Mr. Scrobby was a man who not long since had held his head up in Rufford and had the reputation of a well-to-do tradesman. Enemies had perhaps doubted his probity; but he had gone on and prospered, and, two or three years before the events which are now chronicled, had retired on a competence. He had then taken a house with a few acres of land, lying between Rufford and Rufford Hall, the property of Lord Rufford, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... City of London as the seat of magic; and taking the City's contempt for authorcraft and the intangible as, from its point of view, justly founded, she had mixed her dream strangely with an ancient notion of the City's probity. Her broker's shaking head did not damp her ardour for shares to the full amount of her ability to purchase. She remembered her satisfaction at the allotment; the golden castle shot up from this fountain mine. She had a frenzy for mines and fished in some English with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... counter-proposition, that 'The children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light;' but, at any rate, there is no doubt that a man may be honest without being prosperous, and that he is often all the poorer for his probity. But, indeed, is there any one conceivable situation in life in which a positive rule can be laid down as to the course which men will follow? Can it even—to make use of an illustration which has been very ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... months from the bottom of the factory to the top, the standards of success are practically the same in all instances: sleepless industry, restless scheming, resistless will, coupled with a changeless probity in the domestic excellences. Nothing is more curious about the American business man of fiction than the sentimentality he displays in all matters of the heart. He may hold as robustly as he likes to the doctrine that business is business and that business and sympathy ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... habit of the Commissioners to visit every establishment registered under the act and unfortunately, they are men—I mean of course that, fortunately, they are men of the most absolute probity, but given to over-riding, sometimes, the considered opinion of those in close touch with the cases they are brought in contact with. They would undoubtedly make strict enquiries into the truth of the story that Lord Rochester has just put up, and the result—I ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole |
