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Scruple   /skrˈupəl/   Listen
Scruple

noun
1.
A unit of apothecary weight equal to 20 grains.
2.
Uneasiness about the fitness of an action.  Synonyms: misgiving, qualm.
3.
An ethical or moral principle that inhibits action.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scruple" Quotes from Famous Books



... parents, for so great was it that to have procured it for me must have involved them in an immensity of effort, and with no recompense, since for them there was no pleasure in the sound. And so I would prudently turn the conversation. And by a scruple of conscience, also. All the singular seductions which I had stored up in the sound of that word Swann, I found again as soon as it was uttered. And then it occurred to me suddenly that my parents could not fail to experience the same emotions, that they ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... the closing sonnets, although it is well known that Lady Rich was a golden blonde, with nothing dark about her but her black eyes. To make out this complicated story, Mr. Massey arranges the Sonnets in groups to suit his fancy, baptizes them as he chooses, and does not scruple to vilify the fair name of man or woman in order to make out his argument and to defend the spotless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... his otherwise brilliant career. When we have said that the Chief Justice acted unconstitutionally in continuing in the Cabinet whilst he held the Judicial office, and that, admitted to the friendship and confidence of his sovereign, he did not scruple to exercise power without official responsibility, we have confessed to the most serious offenses with which he is chargeable. It is not, however, to dwell upon these blemishes of true greatness, or to indulge in idle panegyric, that we have occupied so ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... which weighed only five-and-forty pounds. The goats are not better than the sheep; but the hogs, especially the Chinese breed, are incomparable, and so fat, that the purchaser agrees for the lean separately. The butcher, who is always a Chinese, without the least scruple cuts off as much of the fat as he is desired, and afterwards sells it to his countrymen, who melt it down, and eat it instead of butter with their rice: But notwithstanding the excellence of this pork, the Dutch ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... little while the third thing, the remaining possibility, was unformulated in her thoughts; perhaps she had a scruple which made her turn away from it. But her speculations would not be denied their irresponsible freedom of ranging over all the field of chance. If it were true, if more than it, more than the kind ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... lifting the latch noisily, pressed against the door. It was fast. And now the moaning suddenly became louder. Without a thought, without a scruple, he promptly thrust his toe against the foot of the door and pressed heavily. Then, lifting the latch, he threw all the weight of his powerful shoulder against the lock. The door gave before him, nearly precipitating him headlong into ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... of Canaan. When the Greeks got possession of the coast of Tyre, they called it Phoenicia: and from that time it may be admitted as a provincial name. In consequence of this, the writers of the New Testament do not scruple to make use of it, but always with a proper limitation; for the geography of the Scriptures is wonderfully exact. But the Greek and Roman writers often speak of it with a greater latitude, and include Judea and Palestina within its borders; and sometimes add Syria and Idume. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... dished, regularly dished, first by young Reggy Lawson and then by Mr. Higginson. It was for Mr. Higginson that Philippa was coming to Amberley—this year; last year it had been for Reggy Lawson; the year before that it had been for him, Straker. And Fanny did not scruple to ask them all three to meet one another. That was her way. Some day she would carry it too far. Straker, making his dilatory entrance, became aware of the distance to which his hostess had carried it already. It had time to grow on him, from wonder to the extreme of ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... in the glass.] In your place I don't think I should have the smallest scruple in doing so. She is thoroughly well able to ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... the dangers, while it relieved the dulness, of Osbaldistone Hall; but I could not, with the fullest exertion of my prudence, prevail upon myself to regret excessively this new and particular hazard to which I was to be exposed. This scruple I also settled as young men settle most difficulties of the kind—I would be very cautious, always on my guard, consider Miss Vernon rather as a companion than an intimate; and all would do well enough. With these reflections I fell asleep, Miss Vernon, of course, forming the last subject ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... find the facts to agree with this deduction, that the moral restraint varies according to the clearness with which the evil consequences are conceived. Many a one who would shrink from picking a pocket does not scruple to adulterate his goods; and he who never dreams of passing base coin, will yet be a party to joint-stock-bank deceptions. Hence, as we say, the multiplication of the more subtle and complex forms of fraud, is consistent with a general progress ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... is no difference of meaning between round, and a round object, it is only custom which prescribes that on any given occasion one shall be used, and not the other. We shall, therefore, without scruple, speak of adjectives as names, whether in their own right, or as representative of the more circuitous forms of expression above exemplified. The other classes of subsidiary words have no title whatever to be considered as names. An adverb, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... insinuate that the theory and the practice were the same, I should certainly say, that he was exhibiting want of candour. I might, perhaps, think dishonesty, rather too strong a term for such conduct; but I should not scruple to say, that he was disingenuous, and he would be guilty of a species of dishonesty; for all the disingenuousness is to a degree dishonest; and, since the meaning is the same, why should we quarrel at a mere difference of expression? The author proceeds to say, "If ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... as handsomely he could, at the same time, entreated her to give him her Advice, toward the management of himself in this Affair. Leonora, who never from the beginning had entertain'd the least Scruple of distrust, imagined he spoke faintly, as not being yet perfectly recovered in his strength; and withal considering that the heat of the Room, by reason of the Crowd, might be uneasie to a Person in his Condition; ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve

... some Men will fall into absurd and ridiculous Opinions, Habits, Forms, Figures and Grimaces; there will be those who will laugh, nay, cannot help laughing at them. Hence most Parties laugh at one another, without the least Scruple, and with great Applause of their own Parties; and the Leaders of the same Party laugh with one another, when they consider the absurd and ridiculous Opinions they profess, and how they cheat and govern their Followers; agreeably to what Cicero reports of Cato[54], "Vetus autem illud ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... Author that there can be little difference of opinion in the Public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are over-rated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... I think temperately. I am not a "crank" upon this—I hope not upon any subject. I am a temperance woman who does not scruple to avow what is her practice, as well as her belief. That thousands of better people than I will think my creed goes too far, and as many that it stops short of temporal and spiritual safety, ought ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... bifsteca. But we fancy that the same frugal instinct is exercised to our advantage and comfort in other things, for G. makes a great show and merit of denying our charity to those bold and adventurous children of sorrow, who do not scruple to ring your door-bell, and demand alms. It is true that with G., as with every Italian, almsgiving enters into the theory and practice of Christian life, but she will not suffer misery to abuse its privileges. She has no hesitation, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... cared for by means of a true bishop of our church. There can be no scruple on canonical grounds; and if there be hesitation in obeying the Lady Mallerden's orders, (provided she finally takes up her mind to deliver the same,) I would not answer for the recusant's life, no, not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... But once a scruple came over him. "I could have gone away by myself" he said, speaking his thought aloud. Whereupon Katharine answered, after thinking a little: "It seems to me that he wouldn't ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... their household, kind even to some of the wild animals, men who will scatter crumbs to the robins in winter, and set water for the sparrows on their house-top in summer, will yet, in the worship of this their idol, in their greed after the hidden things of the life of the flesh, without scruple, confessedly without compunction, will, I say, dead to the natural motions of the divine element in them, the inherited pity of God, subject innocent, helpless, appealing, dumb souls to such tortures ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... object of her visit, and she was only at the Hall because there was no accommodation at his lodgings, so that she had no scruple in joining the early breakfast spread for the Rector and his wife, so as to have the morning free for him; but she found Julius alone, saying that his wife was tired after the party; and to Jenny's offer ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Street—why the nail should be struck on the head. Densher made no secret to Kate of his having asked for a day to decide; and his account of that matter was that he felt he owed it to her to speak to her first. She assured him on this that nothing so much as that scruple had yet shown her how they were bound together; she was clearly proud of his letting a thing of such importance depend on her; but she was clearer still as to his instant duty. She rejoiced in his prospect and urged him to his task; she should miss him intensely—of course she ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... damnum emergens: or, thirdly, some hazard in the principal money, by its being exposed to some more than ordinary danger in being recovered safely. Some time afterwards the said Alban Butler was convinced there was no occasion of scruple in receiving interest for money, so that it was at a moderate or low rate of interest; and that there was reason to believe the borrower made full the advantage of the money that he paid ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... fortune encouraged him to another visit. This time he was less fortunate, but his gains about balanced his losses, so that he came out even. On the next occasion he left off with empty pockets. So it went on until at length he fell into the hands of Duval, who had no scruple in fleecing him to as great an extent as he ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... farre from that: I only heard By this my honour'd father that your conscience Made some deepe scruple with a false report That Barrisors blood should something touch your honour, 275 Since he imagin'd I was courting you When I was bold to change words with the Duchesse, And therefore made his quarrell, his long love And service, as I heare, beeing deepely vowed ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... man who could brain an assailant and fight for a mouthful of bread would put things over by hook or crook. There wasn't much chance for failure there. But Fred Starratt ... well, he was apt to have some ridiculous scruple or too keen a sense of business courtesy or a sensitiveness to rebuffs. Take his passage at arms with the drunken maid ... if he had thrown her out promptly, or come in and frankly borrowed the money from Hilmer, it would have at least ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... secretly thought that those little tendernesses on the part of ordinary parents hardly enter into consideration in the case of a thane's daughter. It may be said in answer to this that Shakespeare often, as in the presentation of ancient scenes, put without scruple the environment of his own time in place of the historical setting. And according to the above he would be quite likely to utilize with Lady Macbeth recollections ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... informations hitherto taken had proceeded upon oath. Khan Jehan Khan had previously declared to General Clavering his readiness to be so examined; but when called upon by the board, he changed his mind, and alleged a delicacy, relative to his rank, with regard to the oath. In this scruple he was strongly supported by Mr. Hastings. He and Mr. Barwell went further: they contended that the Council had no right to administer an oath. They must have been very clear in that opinion, when they resisted the examination on oath of the very person who, if he could ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... conscious that this train of reasoning passes through their minds. But that something like it is often made the occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And, strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... But Doucebelle had no scruple about hurting his feelings, since she did not believe in their existence. So when her turn came, she knelt ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... of seriousness which were not his. He was too heedless of his good name, and too blind to the truth that though right and wrong may be near neighbours, yet the line that separates them is of an awful sacredness. If Robespierre passed for a hypocrite by reason of his scruple, Danton seemed a desperado by his airs of 'immoral thoughtlessness.' But the world forgives much to a royal size, and Danton was one of the men who strike deep notes. He had that largeness of motive, fulness of nature, and capaciousness ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... of restlessness besets you. The space is narrow for disquiet such as yours,—you hunt up and down the strip of floor like a caged beast. No way out,—no way out!—Face to face with lingering death, why not hasten it? No moral scruple withholds you. Yet will you not die by your own hand. Through all your suffering you will cling to life and worship it. Never will you open your arms to death,—which seems to you no grave, compassionate angel, but a malignant fiend ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... without scruple as a means to an end. She had made him the instrument for escaping from a predicament which she found unbearably irksome. That she had done so in the heat of passion was small palliation. For the present, at ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... cheap, that two geese, or four ducks, may be bought for a Venetian groat. Then follow the butcher markets, in which beef, mutton, veal, kid, and lamb, are sold to the great and rich, as the poor eat of all offal and unclean beasts without scruple. All sorts of herbs and fruits are to be had continually, among which are huge pears, weighing ten pounds each, white within, and very fragrant[4], with yellow and white peaches of very delicate flavour. Grapes do not grow in this country, but raisins are brought from other places. They likewise ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... They who betake themselves to improper conduct, they who take exorbitant rates of interest, and they who make unduly large profits on sales, have to sink in hell. They who are given to gambling, they who indulge in wicked acts without any scruple, and they who are given to slaughter of living creatures, have to sink in hell. They who cause the dismissal by masters of servants that are hoping for rewards or are expectant of definite need or are in the enjoyment of wages or salaries or ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... on her part of course released him from his bond. So Lady Ball argued, and against this argument her son made no demur. Indeed it was hardly possible that he should comprehend exactly what had taken place between his cousin and Mr Maguire. His mother did not scruple to assure him that she must undoubtedly at one time have accepted the man's proposal. In answer to this John Ball would always assert his entire reliance ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... score you may make your mind easy: Pablo and I are quite sufficient for the farm, or any thing else we may want to do. If you can be more useful elsewhere, have no scruple in leaving us. If the king was to come and raise an army, you would leave us, of course; and I see no reason why, if an eligible offer is made you, you should not do it now. You and your talents are thrown ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... continually upstairs to listen outside the door. They scarcely spoke to each other now; and not a single word had been exchanged between them regarding the midnight scene, although weeks had passed since it had taken place. He, through an inexplicable scruple, a strange delicacy of which he was not himself conscious, did not wish to renew the conversation, and to demand the answer which he expected—a promise of faith in him and of submission. She, after the great moral shock which had completely transformed her, still reflected, hesitated, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... places, and the order of her father's journey. But for the moment she was so happy, so lifted up by the belief that her troubles at last were over, that she forgot to be ashamed of her meagre answers. It seemed to her now that she could marry him without the remnant of a scruple or a single tremor save those that belonged to joy. Without waiting for him to ask, she told him that her father had come back in exactly the same state of mind—that he had not ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... anon.]; and although there is a patriarch here who takes care of church matters, and is attentive to keep his clergy from ever meddling with or even mentioning affairs of state, as in such a case the Republic would not scruple punishing them as laymen; yet has Venice kept, as they call it, St. Peter's boat from sinking more than once, when she saw the Pope's territories endangered, or his sovereignty insulted: nor is there ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... permit our children, without scruple, to hear any fables composed by any authors indifferently, and so to receive into their minds opinions generally the reverse of those which, when they are grown to manhood, we shall think they ought to entertain?—PLATO, ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... Coprinus comatus, and Coprinus atramentarius, are also available, together with Fistulina hepatica, and Morchella esculenta. In some districts, when mushrooms are scarce, it is stated that almost any species that will yield a dark juice is without scruple mixed with the common mushroom, and it should seem without any bad consequence except the deterioration of the ketchup.[V] There is an extensive manufacture of ketchup conducted at Lubbenham, near Market Harborough, but the great difficulty appears to be the prevention ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... Munich, whither he had gone immediately after handing in at the Record office a brief dispatch bringing his work on the case to an unexciting close. 'What I sent you wasn't worth one-tenth of the amount; but I should have no scruple about pocketing it if I hadn't taken a fancy—never mind why—not to touch any money at all for this business. I should like you, if there is no objection, to pay for the stuff at your ordinary space-rate, and hand the money to some charity which does not devote itself ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... mischievous state of opinion on this subject. Deception in regard to your lessons is not viewed, as it should be, in the light of a serious moral delinquency. An ingenuous youth, who would scorn to steal, and scorn to lie anywhere else than at school, makes no scruple to deceive a teacher. Is honesty a thing of place and time? I do not say, I would not trust at my money-drawer the boy who has been cheating at his lessons, because a boy may have been led into the latter delinquency by ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... different in tone, but they all have at the end of their programme the cause of the Fatherland. By this time you will have been named to them as its enemy. Twenty thousand of them, my friend, and not a scruple amongst the lot!" ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world; and, in place of his former regard, he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple about showing on ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... son, already arrived at the age of manhood. The repudiated queen murdered her husband, and placed Seleucus on the vacant throne; who, in order to remove all competition on the part of Berenice and her child, made no scruple to deprive them both of life. Euergetes could not behold such proceedings unmoved. Advancing into Syria at the head of a powerful army, he took possession of the greater part of the country, which seems not to have been defended, the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... exclaimed. "You are wrecking your life for an insane scruple. Child, listen! Tell me nothing whatever! Give yourself to me! No one shall ever take you away again. That I swear. And I will make you so happy, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... while, regardless of all precedence, they gladly accepted subordinate places.[1] While an artist like Herr Schuppanzigh was at the head of the first violins, and by his fiery and expressive mode of conducting kindled the zeal of the whole orchestra, Herr Kapellmeister Salieri did not scruple to give the time to the drums and cannonades; Herr Spohr and Herr Mayseder, each worthy from his talents to fill the highest post, played in the second and third rank. Herr Siboni and Herr Giuliani also filled subordinate places. The conducting of the whole was only assigned to me from the ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... unlawful, have usually held other errors or heresies therewith, though they have (as other heretics used to do) concealed the same till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them by way of question or scruple," etc.: "It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... and likely enough would turn to the waiter, and bid him, 'Give this gent a glass of the same, and score it up to yours truly!' We have his biographer's word for it, that he would have winked at the Duke of Wellington, with just as little scruple. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... little one," I heard Bob answer. "He don't want ye to go; it's some kind of conscientious scruple as he's got into his head that makes him talk that a-way. Between you and me,"—here his voice sank to a kind of confidential growl, but I distinctly heard every word, nevertheless—"it's my idee that he's got some sort of a notion ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... him, and his departure left her broken and cast down. Becky bore Dobbin no rancour for the part he had taken against her. It was an open move; she was in the game and played fairly. She even admired him, and now that she was in comfortable quarters, made no scruple of declaring her admiration for the high-minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had behaved ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... text the words from St Luke: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!" The young man much resented this directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when they met he did not scruple publicly to insult Mr Clare, without respect for ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... guard, for if his side, which was always that of the English against the French, should chance to be defeated, there would be trouble in Baxter's Place. For these opinions he may almost be said to have suffered. Baptised and brought up in the Church of Scotland, he had, upon some conscientious scruple, joined the communion of the Baptists. Like other Nonconformists, these were inclined to the Liberal side in politics, and, at least in the beginning, regarded Buonaparte as a deliverer. From the time of his joining the Spearmen, Thomas Smith became in consequence a bugbear to his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I commit no sin in loving material things for the love of God, which is to love them for themselves, righteously; for what are material things but the manifestation, the creation of the love of God? And, notwithstanding, I know not what undefinable fear, what unwonted scruple, what vague and scarcely perceptible remorse torments me now, when, as formerly, as in other days of my youth, as in childhood itself, I feel an effusion of tenderness, a sort of ecstasy of enthusiasm, on penetrating into some leafy ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera

... as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor— Both thanks and use."—Measure ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... and scrupled about it, it sprang, with an impulse that he did not stop to scruple at, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... on this, without scruple, any innocence. My need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose's had dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... me a bill of exchange for just this amount to take command of the steamer during the inward trip. As the Whisper belonged to a private company, I accepted the bonus without scruple. What became of it, and the value of Confederate currency at that time may ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... of such restraint, and finding myself satiated, as it were, with such food, I could not put up with it, and therefore eat freely of every thing I liked best; and likewise, feeling myself in a manner parched up by the heat of my disease, made no scruple of drinking, and in large quantities, the wines that best pleased my palate. This indeed, like all other patients, I kept a secret from my physicians. But, when I had once resolved to live sparingly, and according to the dictates of reason, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro

... she thought conducive to his recovery; and it must be acknowledged that it was not always her "humour to be truthful." For Hyde had so craved news of Katherine, that she believed he would die wanting it; and she had therefore fallen, without one conscientious scruple, into the reporter's temptation,—inventing the things which ought to have taken place, and did not. "For, in faith, Nigel," she said to her husband, in excuse, "those who have nothing to ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... to this business by Mr. Quintus Slide, and that he made himself nasty. There was, however, so much nastiness of the kind going, that his little effort made no great difference. The conservative members of the Committee, on whose side of the House the inquiry had originated, did not scruple to lay all manner of charges to officers whom, were they themselves in power, they would be bound to support and would support with all their energies. About a quarter before four the members of the Committee had dismissed ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... nothing more detestable than defamation. I have no scruple to rank a slanderer with a murderer or an assassin. Those who assault the reputation of their benefactors, and 'rob you of that which nought enriches them,' would destroy your life, if they could do it with ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... headache and the rather agreeable lees of the last night's excitement. The young bloods, many of whom were still far from sober, had taken the kitchen into their own hands, vice the Chinaman deposed; and since each was engaged upon a dish of his own, and none had the least scruple in demolishing his neighbour's handiwork, I became early convinced that many eggs would be broken and few omelets made. The discovery of a jug of milk and a crust of bread enabled me to stay my appetite; and since it was Sunday, when ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... ounce, manna three drachms; make a potion. Take of syrup of mugwort one ounce, syrup of maiden-hair two ounces, pulv-elect triasand one drachm; make a julep. Take prus. salt, elect. ros. mesua, of each three drachms, rhubarb one scruple, and make a bolus; apply to the loins and privy parts fomentations of the juice of lettuce, violets, roses, malloes, vine leaves and nightshade; anoint the secret parts with the ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... heavenly Jerusalem, ... and to God the Judge of all, ... and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant.' What has become of the impossibility? Vanished. Where is the 'cannot'? Turned into a blessed 'can.' And so Apostles have no scruple in saying, 'Our citizenship is in Heaven,' nor in saying, 'We sit together with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.' The path that was blocked is open. The impossibility that towered up like a great black wall has melted away; and the path into the Holiest of all is made patent ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... so strong that none doubted that it would succeed. Numbers of the best people in the country sided with the rebels, and felt so sure of their ultimate success that they did not scruple to let it be known ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, November 4, 1897, No. 52 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... keeping to think so. But Amelie knew that Angelique des Meloises was incapable of that true love which only finds its own in the happiness of another. She was vain, selfish, ambitious, and—what Amelie did not yet know—possessed of neither scruple nor delicacy in attaining ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... lords, I still think my motion for postponing the bill very reasonable, nor do I make any scruple to confess that I propose, by postponing, only a more gentle and inoffensive method of dropping it, that some other way of raising the supplies may be attempted, or that the duty may be raised to three shillings a gallon; the lowest tax that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... I have got into a snug little corner in both your hearts, and that you will excuse a great deal from me, therefore I go on without scruple drawing upon your sympathy, and you ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... had been completed several days when, notwithstanding her absence of scruple in the satiating of her hatred, she still hesitated to employ that mode of vengeance, so much atrocious cruelty was there in causing a daughter to spy upon her mother. It was Alba herself who kindled the last spark of humanity with which that dark ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... view. History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions. They had their own notion of truthfulness, based on the exceeding difficulty of finding truth, and the still greater difficulty of impressing it when found. They thought it possible to write, with so much scruple, and simplicity, and insight, as to carry along with them every man of good will, and, whatever his feelings, to compel its assent. Ideas which, in religion and in politics, are truths, in history are forces. They must be respected; they must not be affirmed. By dint of a supreme reserve, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... has gone too far, even for his own period, and brings himself up with the qualifying reservation that if Willis and Hoffman never did dine together at Delmonico's, they ought to have done so. He has apparently no misgivings as to the famous musical critic, and he has no scruple in assembling for us at his "literary soiree" a dozen distinguished-looking men and "twice as many women.... listening to a tall, deaconly man, who stands between two candles held by a couple of sticks summoned from the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... with a fierce energy, forcing Fournel back upon the wall. He was not a first-class swordsman, but he had far more knowledge of the weapon than his opponent, and he had no scruple about using his knowledge. Fournel fought with desperate alertness, yet awkwardly, and he could not attack; it was all that he could do, all that he knew how to do, to defend himself. Twice again ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... newspaper at all. I felt that your ship had arrived at its port. But the more I felt this, the more unwilling I was to say anything before I heard the news from a source other than the newspapers. I gave way to an excess, a foolish excess perhaps of scruple. But you will, I think, understand this. In writing to you the other day I expressed not a tenth part of what I felt and feel and that baldly and inadequately. Nothing for years has given me so much joy. I have hardly ever entered a church ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... see you, Mr. Dexter—I will not see you. Our ways in this world have parted, and forever. The act was not mine, but yours. You flung me off with a force that overcame all scruple—all question of right—all effort to cling to you as my husband. I was trying, in my feeble way—for not much power remained—to be a dutiful wife, when you extinguished all hope of success by ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... A very small number who are probably radically inverted, and who do not scruple to sacrifice young and innocent boys to their passions. These, and these only, are a real moral danger to others, and I ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... as he was, seemed to feel that this venerable chair must not be clambered upon nor overturned, although he had no scruple in taking such liberties With every other chair in the house. Clara treated it with still greater reverence, often taking occasion to smooth its cushion, and to brush the dust from the carved flowers and grotesque figures of its oaken back and arms. Laurence would sometimes sit a whole hour, ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... gingerly over the separate life, brings it all to a standstill. Meddle too much, and the Demiurge who set the machine going turns sulky and stops working. Then the nation goes to pieces—till some strong ruffian without a scruple puts it together again." ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... that your Honours are not often wont at the present time to grant interest at the rate of one florin for twenty; and I have been told that before now other applications of a like kind have been refused. It is not, therefore, without scruple that I address your Honours in this matter. Yet my necessities impel me to prefer this request to your Honours, and I am encouraged to do so above all by the particularly gracious favour which I have always received from your Honourable ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... gallantly leading his men in the face of the enemy; and his memory will live among the gallant men who have done so much to keep the fine traditions of the British Army unsullied. He is buried with his brother officers near where he fell. If I can help you in any way, I hope you will not scruple to tell me. My wife will also have written to you, and is very anxious to hear if she can do anything ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... the month of April! The accessories of the cotillon cost, it appears, more than 400,000 francs. Ornaments, 'bon-bonnieres', delicious trifles, and we were begged to accept them. For my part I took nothing, but there were many who made no scruple. That evening Puymartin told me Mrs. Scott's history, but it was not at all like Monsieur de Larnac's story. Roger said that, when quite little, Mrs. Scott had been stolen from her family by some acrobats, and that her father had found her in a travelling circus, riding ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... of schools. There are hundreds of priests who can say the same of themselves. And should there be refractory characters who do not care about a good Catholic education, let us refuse them absolution, as penitents who are not disposed for the worthy reception of the sacraments. We cannot scruple to do this. ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... grunted Jimmy, who climbed rapidly up, standing on the doctor's shoulders, making no scruple about planting a foot upon his head, and then we knew by his grunting and choking sounds that he was forcing his ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... O'Gallagher, the company to which my father Ben belonged was ordered afloat again, and shortly afterwards sailed for the East Indies, in the Redoubtable, 74. That my mother was very much pleased at his departure, I do not scruple to assert; but whether she ever analysed her feelings, I cannot pretend to say; I rather think that all she wished was, that the chapter of accidents would prevent Ben's reappearance, as she was ashamed of him as a husband, and felt ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... very few young men in similar circumstances who have such an opportunity given them. I hope you will be guided to use both means and opportunity for the best possible end. I shall be glad to be of any service to you at any time. Do not scruple to ask me. I mean ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... names, since it would be too plainly to give the Lye to the learned Servius, who positively declares the contrary. In a word, what would my Censors do with Catullus, Martial, and all the Poets of Antiquity, who have made no more scruple in this matter than Virgil? What would they think of Voiture who had the conscience to laugh at the expence of the renowned Neuf Germain, tho' equally to be admir'd for the Antiquity of his Beard, and the Novelty of his Poetry? ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... John, "in what manner I have offended you, nor does my debt of gratitude to you for your generosity in forgiving my sins weigh one scruple against this you have told me. No man, unless he were a poor clown, would endure it; and I tell you now, with all my love for you, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... world writes some verses which I feel certain would be objected to by many of our readers. Not that the writer is not pure, and the moral most pure, chaste, and right, but there are things my squeamish public will not hear on Monday, though on Sundays they listen to them without scruple. In your poem, you know, there is an account of unlawful passion, felt by a man for a woman, and though you write pure doctrine, and real modesty, and pure ethics, I am sure our readers would make an outcry, and so I ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... early life was derived from his grandfather, whose nature had in it much of the serenity and wise happiness which go to the making of a saint. This influence was no doubt ethical in its character rather than religious; but it can be traced, for example, in a humane scruple which links it with Dilke's affectionate cult of St. Francis ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... and so also were wreckers,—a class of men, who, in the absence of an efficient coastguard, subsisted to a large extent on what they picked up from the wrecks that were cast in their way, and who did not scruple, sometimes, to cause wrecks, by showing false lights in order ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... resolved at least on one point, and beginning already to recover the hope of his sanguine nature, from his reliance on his mother's love, on the promises that softened her disclosures and warnings, and on his conviction that Helen had only to be seen for every scruple to give way, Percival wandered back towards the house, and coming abruptly on the terrace, he encountered Varney, who was leaning motionless against the balustrades, with an open letter in his hand. Varney was deadly pale, and there was the trace of some recent and gloomy agitation in the relaxed ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... way of secular life. Not only, so said the prior, did my father cause scandal by his actions, breaking out of the priory at night and visiting drinking houses and other places; but, such was the sum of his wickedness, he did not scruple to question and make mock of the very doctrines of the Church, alleging even that there was nothing sacred in the image of the Virgin Mary which stood in the chancel, and shut its eyes in prayer before all ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... world can be so proper to be trusted with a secret, and none more fit to undertake a great enterprise, which you can best bring to a good issue by your zeal, courage, and intrepidity. In confidence of these great and good qualities, which are so much your due, I will not scruple to relate to you my whole history, with that of the two persons ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... indeed; and on the plea that we are as nothing in comparison with him, they liken us to earthworms which men crush without heeding as they walk, or in general to animals that are not of our species and which we do not [59] scruple to ill-treat. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... children in the infinite series of ascending and descending generations. Concerning the oblique and collateral branches, nature is indifferent, reason mute, and custom various and arbitrary. In Egypt, the marriage of brothers and sisters was admitted without scruple or exception: a Spartan might espouse the daughter of his father, an Athenian, that of his mother; and the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded at Athens as a happy union of the dearest relations. The profane lawgivers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... with Anna for several days. She shunned him openly. Her carriage moved off when he advanced to meet her at the parade, or review of arms; and she did not scruple to speak in public with Major Nagen, in the manner of those who have begun to speak together in private. The offender received his punishment gracefully, as men will who have been taught that it flatters them. He refused every challenge. From Carlo Ammiani there ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... differently, like an incoherent cry, telling her that she loved him in spite of all. She tried to listen to what it said, and then the answer came quickly enough, and told her that she had been unkind, that she had given needless pain, that she had broken a man's life for an over-conscientious scruple which had no real foundation. But then her conscience returned to the charge, refuting the slighting accusation, so that the confusion was renewed, and became worse than before. For the sake of discovering something in ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... you have seen the Duke of Richmond or Fitzroy—but lest you should not, I will tell you all I can learn, and a wonderful history it is. Admiral Byng was not more unpopular than Lord George Sackville.[1] I should scruple repeating his story if Betty and the waiters at Arthur's did not talk of it publicly, and thrust Prince Ferdinand's orders into ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... possession of an epistle written by Clement, bishop of Rome, (Lardner, Cred. vol. p. 62, et seq.) whom ancient writers, without any doubt or scruple, assert to have been the Clement whom Saint Paul mentions, Phil. iv. 3; "with Clement also, and other my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life." This epistle is spoken of by the ancients as an epistle acknowledged by all; and, as Irenaeus well represents its value, "written by ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... It does not seem quite clear whether Sharp's scruple about the deprived prelates was a scruple of conscience or merely a scruple of delicacy. See his Life by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Quincey scruple at such English as 'made and being made,' 'the bride that was being married to him,' and 'the shafts of Heaven were even now being forged.' On one occasion he writes, 'Not done, not even (according to modern purism) being done'; as if 'purism' meant exactness, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... such things; who delighted in proving that they had a superior power of attraction, and who would not scruple to use all sorts of mean little underhand ways to lessen a man's admiration for some other girl, and appropriate it for themselves. She had even heard some of the girls at ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Secretary's enemies as at once a reproof to them, and a blow aimed at the popular foreign policy. They boldly averred that, though the foreign affairs of the Government might not call for very decided measures, Mr. Benjamin would not scruple—now that he more than ever had the ear of his chief—to go beyond his own into every branch of the Government, and to insert his own peculiar and subtle sophisms into every ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... a schism, is not unknown to have spread all over Asia, ere any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing. If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy and Spain, whether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... has told me about van Heerden," she said quietly. "Isn't it rather a matter for the English police to deal with? As I have reason to know," she shivered slightly, "Doctor van Heerden is a man without any fear or scruple." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... think as they do. "These people," they say, "make themselves very agreeable to you, and show you their smooth side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one. Knuckle under to them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you; have any individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple nor remorse in their attempts to get you out of their way. "Il prete," they say, with a significant look, "e sempre prete. For the future let us have professors and men of science instead of priests." I smile to myself ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... hatchet, a club or any other weapon which may chance to be in his hand. The heads of the women are always consequently seen in the state which I found that of Gooreedeeana. Colbee, who was certainly, in other respects a good tempered merry fellow, made no scruple of treating Daringa, who was a gentle creature, thus. Baneelon did the same to Barangaroo, but she was a scold and a vixen, and nobody pitied her. It must nevertheless be confessed that the women often artfully study to irritate and inflame the passions ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... domestic finance and economics. There was Truesdale, a flippant and insolent egotist, who had neither affection nor respect for his own parents, his own family, his own birthplace. There was Roger, who hewed roughly his own independent course, and who did not scruple to turn his powers against his own father if crossed in his desires or balked in his ambitions. And ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that "bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... their first private colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight of judicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamed of it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save his professional reputation. But the obstinate Judge—who perhaps, after all, was more inquisitive than kindly—evidently wanted to hear the story out, and she was ordered, the next day, to continue ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... and if goods be not redeemed within three years, they are made over to the old clothes' shops at a settled premium of 20 per cent. on the amount lent on them. Pawnbrokers' establishments are numerous, and are frequented by all classes, who pawn without scruple anything they may possess. The banks, we are informed, 'keep up an intimate connection with the pawnbrokers, who make and receive all their payments in notes for copper cash, and will not take sycee, dollars, or dollar-notes—the former, lest they should prove counterfeit, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... Though he would have advised others that by God's mercy all sorrows in this world could be cured, he told himself,—without arraigning God's mercy,—that for him this sorrow could not be cured. He did not scruple, therefore, to assure his brother that he would not marry,—nor did he hesitate, in writing to Patience Underwood, to assure her that his love for her sister was unchangeable. In saying so he urged no suit;—but ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... world, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the objections against his own tenure of the foreign command to be pressed.[522] The people, perhaps grateful for the Gracchan sympathies of Crassus, felt no scruple about dismissing their pontiff to a foreign land, and readily voted him the conduct ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... Heimbert had no scruple to take with him for the journey any of the wine and fruits that were still fit for use, and Antonia assured him that by the direct way, well known to her, they would reach the fruitful shore of this waterless ocean in a few days. So with the approach of evening coolness ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... audibly against the policy of Villars, who was tolerating if not encouraging heretics—worthy, in their estimation, only of perdition. Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, was full of lamentations on the subject, and did not scruple to proclaim that war, with all its horrors, was even more tolerable than such a ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... added that he told him to tell his nation not to be disheartened by the congress, because care would be taken to make proposals which must be rejected, and that he was as ready as ever. I really believe there is nothing too base in the way of perfidy he would scruple to do, if his resolution was fixed and it appeared clearly to be his interest. There has, however, been a change in him of late, as to determination. He is more easily swayed by others than he was, and he falters more when left alone. Altogether, it is a cruel calamity ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... asleep, Luckie Barm of the Change, a douce woman, put him to his bed, and promised to take care of him till we came back; Saunders Tram insisting on us to go forward along with him to see the race. I had no great scruple to do this, as I thought Benjie would likely sleep for an hour, being wearied with the joggling of the cart, and having supped a mutchkin bowlful of Luckie Barm's ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... already observed) appeared to have been thrown away upon them when viewed as a breeding stock for settlers. No sooner had the Atlantic sailed, than the major part of them were offered for sale; and there was little doubt (many of their owners making no scruple to publish their intentions) that had they not been bought by the officers, in a very few weeks many of them would have been destroyed. By this conduct, as far as their individual benefit was concerned, they had put it out of their own power to reap ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... heard to remark, "the removal to London was going on very smoothly, and it would have been done by this time, if this one trustee had not put his spoke in the wheel:" meaning, that the conscientious scruple of this trustee was the sole impediment to the movement. Is this the customary and proper mode of using the phrase; and, if so, how can putting a spoke to a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... visit. It will be from the Sultan himself, with the heart of an egret in his hand. As soon as you perceive that he brings it near yours, feign to be asleep, but answer with precision all the questions which he may put to you, and let truth flow from your mouth, unsullied by the slightest scruple." ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... without remorse. His one desire is to get into Parliament. You are wealthy, and you can help him. He will leave no effort untried to reach that end; and, if he gets you into political difficulties, he will desert you without scruple." ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... first Words that lay in his Way; and if, amongst these, there were two Mixed-modes that had but a principal Idea in common, it was enough for him; he regarded them as synonymous, and would use the one for the other without Fear or Scruple.—Again, there have been others, such as the two last Editors, who have fallen into a contrary Extreme, and regarded Shakespear's Anomalies (as we may call them) amongst the Corruptions of his Text; which, therefore, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... Mission is on ground which now belongs to the Union Oil Company of California. The building itself has been desecrated and damaged by the public ever since its abandonment. Its visitors apparently did not scruple to deface it in every possible way, and what could not be stolen was ruthlessly destroyed. It apparently was a pleasure to them to pry the massive roof-beams loose, in order to enjoy the crash occasioned by the breaking of ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... small scruple like that for the sake of the poor even? Well, I don't believe YOU could.—Oblige me by taking this guinea for some one or other of your poor people. But I AM glad you weren't sure of that last book. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... thou less nor more But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more Or less than a just pound, be it so much As makes light or heavy in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest, and ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... with the less fear of detection. There are some few hotel-keepers who, though they more than suspect the purpose to which the liquor these whites are demanding is to be applied, permit rapacity to overpower righteous compunction or scruple, and lend themselves, likewise, though indirectly, to the law's infraction. Happily, the penalty is now so heavy ($300) that the evil is, I think, being ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... Marion's kind and grave attention there must be, for all her love, the little barrier raised by the dissentient voice of her conscience. It had been much easier to be quite frank with Isabella, whose love for Francis swept aside every scruple, every obstacle, but with Marion it was different. It was not that she could not understand the power of love, or was incapable of sacrificing herself on love's altar; she was essentially a woman who knew love at its very best and strongest, and ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... though no fibre had been severed, while at other times pieces were inserted so deftly that the most experienced eyes might fail to detect their presence. It was with him a labour of love, and he did not scruple to spend days over work on which others would only spend hours. He made many Violins, several of which were given as prizes at the Paris Conservatoire. They are well-made instruments, though heavy ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... ordering me not to overtask my eyes—forbidding reading and writing, as I have already mentioned. But, when I asked for his reasons, he had, for the first time in my experience of him, no reasons to give. I have the less scruple about disobeying him, on that account. Still I am a little uneasy, I confess, when I think of his strange behavior yesterday. He looked at me, in the oddest way—as if he saw something in my face which ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... of the interior cabinet, and requested them to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same, readily consented. Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had already been in the habit of giving her his hand when she repaired to her oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself officially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly disturbed. His influence in the country arose chiefly from the opinion entertained by the clergy and by the Tory gentry, that he was a zealous and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... except in matter of size, they could see very little difference between the giants and themselves. All Zebedee Nabbum's warlike and elephant-trapping schemes melted away entirely, and he even began to have a sort of conscientious scruple against enticing away the big fellow who proved to be such a jolly good-humored giant. He was prepared for resistance. He would have even liked the fun of throwing a noose over his head, and pulling him down and harpooning him, but ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch

... her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth, and the reasons for which it was concealed. He was no longer satisfied with the employment which had been allotted him, but thought he had a right to share the affluence of his mother; and therefore without scruple applied to her as her son, and made use of every art to awaken her tenderness and attract her regard. But neither his letters, nor the interposition of those friends which his merit or his distress procured him, made any impression on her mind. She still resolved ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... read from the housetops without conveying anything to the populace. But some of them—almost between the lines—had been intended to convey, and had conveyed, something to Jem. She reflected—without anger, as women do on such matters—that if curiosity moved her, Mrs. Agar would not scruple to open all these letters and read them. The packets had evidently not been opened, and a momentary feeling of grateful recognition of Arthur's gentlemanly honour passed through her mind. There was about the faded papers that dim, mysterious odour which ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... is there in pushing commerce a step beyond the limits of the law? These English are a nation of monopolists; and they make no scruple of tying us of the colonies, hand and foot, heart and soul, with their acts of Parliament, saying 'with us shalt thou trade, or not at all.' By the character of the best burgomaster of Amsterdam, and they came by the province, too, in no such honesty, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... Peter's see restrained us. But some pious men having convinced us that Pope Alexander VI. had nothing in common with St. Peter, we at last decided to bring this little piece into the light, without scruple. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... that they had given their testimony under bodily fear, for that a man with a drawn sword in his hand had stood over them the whole time. A rascally lawyer, whom the party employed, suggested this story; and as the sentry at the cabin door was a man with a drawn sword, the Americans made no scruple of swearing to this ridiculous falsehood, and commencing prosecutions against him accordingly. They laid their damages at the enormous amount of L40,000; and Nelson was obliged to keep close on board his own ship, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... two parts, in the outward of which were an altar of stone and a crucifix made of reeds: this served the anchorite for his chapel. On one side of this outward cave the Christian knight, though not without scruple, arising from religious reverence to the objects around, fastened up his horse, and arranged him for the night, in imitation of the Saracen, who gave him to understand that such was the custom of the place. The hermit, meanwhile, was busied putting his inner apartment ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... the way to a restaurant not far away, where he allowed his cousin to order an ample dinner, which he did without scruple, since he was not to pay ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... are acquainted. Where the British public rebukes an awkward writer by conspiring to boycott his books, so that, unless he has private means, he is eventually silenced, where the United States, going a step farther, deny his works the privilege of the mails, Athens does not scruple to administer hemlock, and, if an élite is indignant or sorrowful, the democracy applauds. Even at the height of the recent Red Terror the United States never went so Conservative as this. This should help us to realize the rock-firm basis of tradition, of use and ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... all its occasions. Hume, Mill, and Huxley were scientific at heart, and full of the intelligence they dissected; they seemed to cry to nature: Though thou dost not exist, yet will I trust in thee. Their idealism was a theoretical scruple rather than a passionate superstition. Not so M. Bergson; he is not so simple as to invoke the malicious criticism of knowledge in order to go on thinking rationalistically. Reason and science make ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... it may cause, or the shock it may give to Mrs. Grundy. Anne Boleyn had a whole clan of Browns, or "country cousins," who were welcomed at court in the reign of Elizabeth. The queen, however, was quick to see what was gauche, and did not scruple to reprove them for uncourtly manners. Her plainness of speech used quite ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.



Words linked to "Scruple" :   question, misgiving, hesitate, fret, dram, fuss, wonder, drachma, anxiety, drachm, apothecaries' unit, pause, apothecaries' weight, grain, scrupulous, niggle, principle



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