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scruples
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  • In Go Down, Moses (1942), Ike McCaslin discovers while reading through plantation ledgers that his grandfather had sired a daughter by one of his slaves, Eunice, and then, not scrupling at incest or recognizing the humanity in his slaves that would make his act incest, got that daughter, Tomasina, pregnant.†   (source)
  • Besides, anyone decent enough to come help her escape from The Clink probably has some kind of scruples about boffing fifteen-year-old girls.†   (source)
  • At that she had not scrupled.†   (source)
  • Farid had no such scruples.†   (source)
  • He nodded and I pointed to the nearby apothecary "Go buy me two scruples of nahlrout."†   (source)
  • It seemed so charming to Fermina Daza that she overcame her scruples and laid it on her pillow during the day and grew accustomed to sleeping with it at night.†   (source)
  • When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples.†   (source)
  • I was afraid to raise the question with her; what if, in examining her own scruples on the subject, she should change her mind?†   (source)
  • If a magician full of ambition but lacking scruples got hold of it, he or she could wreak an incredible amount of havoc.†   (source)
  • You try to imagine Eisenstein in the underground of bisexual Berlin, forty-five years ago, with his domed head and somewhat stunted limbs, hair springing from his scalp in clownish tufts, a man with bourgeois scruples and a gift for sublimation, and here he is in the Kit Kat or the Bow Wow, seamy heated cellars unthinkable in Moscow, and he's dishing Hollywood gossip with men in drag.†   (source)
  • My only hope is that one who flies down a stair rail as beautifully as you do can overcome his scruples in this matter.†   (source)
  • The coup gave them a chance to put into practice what they had learned in their barracks: blind obedience, the use of arms, and other skills that soldiers can master once they silence the scruples of their hearts.†   (source)
  • Milo had rigid scruples that would not even allow him to borrow a package of pitted dates from the mess hall that day of McWatt's stolen bedsheet, for the food at the mess hall was all still the property of the government.†   (source)
  • The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything.†   (source)
  • And why should we scruple to call such a people a mob, I can't conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them.†   (source)
  • Unlike most ladies, Mrs. Mompellion did not scruple to toil with her hands.†   (source)
  • "It's too late for any scruples or any principles," said Ferris.†   (source)
  • Without scruples or any kind of human heart.†   (source)
  • It's just how I would try to keep it, were it mine, and for a moment I allow myself the thought that I've bestowed at least this tiny scruple on Sunny, from years of example.†   (source)
  • Let's also assume that the national rulers overcame all the scruples arising from a sense of duty or fear of the experiment.†   (source)
  • But my various religious and ancestral scruples forbade my accepting it as a gift.†   (source)
  • But Peter was obsessed by none of his sister's scruples.†   (source)
  • DUDARD: I feel certain scruples!†   (source)
  • And he surely would not scruple, even on that day, to be angry at the Lord.†   (source)
  • Charlie, who had no such scruples, looked impatiently at Dick's working face.†   (source)
  • I have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st of.   (source)
    scruples = moral principles that discourage certain kinds of action
  • The King's Justice must be fearsome, the master of coin must be frugal, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard must be valiant … and the master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple.†   (source)
  • Your sellswords once served your foes, and once a man turns his cloak he will not scruple to turn it again.†   (source)
  • The Commandant was a homebody, as we shall observe, but one dedicated blindly to duty and a cause; thus he became a mere servomechanism in which a moral vacuum had been so successfully sucked clean of every molecule of real qualm or scruple that his own descriptions of the unutterable crimes he perpetrated daily seem often to float outside and apart from evil, phantasms of cretinous innocence.†   (source)
  • But he knows himself; and, given the opportunity, his curiosity would have overcome his scruples.†   (source)
  • That should satisfy your scruples, Mandy dear.†   (source)
  • I said she didn't have that problem herself anymore, since she'd decided to prefer women, and as far as I could see she had no scruples about stealing them or borrowing them when she felt like it.†   (source)
  • She is as devoid of morals as she is of scruples, and will use any unwitting tool that comes to hand.†   (source)
  • Leona Cassiani, for her part, soon overcame her initial scruples, and she revealed what she had kept hidden with so much astuteness during her first three years.†   (source)
  • I had two scruples of nahlrout numbing me, and I knew better than to mix anesthetics if I could avoid it.†   (source)
  • Two scruples.†   (source)
  • Sooner or later I must set aside my scruples and obey the Biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply."†   (source)
  • He knew, however, that as soon as he put those scruples aside he would break the vicious circle of the war.†   (source)
  • If the powerful British king has scruples about using this power, a President of the United States will be even more cautious.†   (source)
  • Scruples of the kind he had once preached to Mercy Warren concerning such appointments were considered no more.†   (source)
  • Fernanda had to swallow her scruples and their guests of the worst sort like kings as they muddied the porch with their boots, urinated in the garden. laid their mats down anywhere to take their siesta, and spoke without regard for the sensitivities of ladies or the proper behavior of gentlemen.†   (source)
  • I have some scruples of conscience whether I ought to preserve him, whether it would not he charity to stumble, and relieve him from such a futurity.†   (source)
  • She loved him, scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor—at least, honor as Ashley saw it.†   (source)
  • He was shrewd, competent and unscrupulous in the innocent manner of one unable to grasp the conception of a scruple.†   (source)
  • They were completely fearless of wild horses, shooting affrays and the indignation of their neighbors, but they had a wholesome fear of their red-haired mother's outspoken remarks and the riding crop that she did not scruple to lay across their breeches.†   (source)
  • Leo exacted the last scruple.†   (source)
  • And in deference to this scruple he is constrained to admit that, though the chief source of distress, the deepest as well as the most widespread, was separation-and it is his duty to say more about it as it existed in the later stages of the plague-it cannot be denied that even this distress was coming to lose something of its poignancy.†   (source)
  • But some people, like Ashley, have neither cunning nor strength or, having them, scruple to use them.†   (source)
  • Scarlett was in a furious temper and did not scruple to expend it on Hugh, for she had just received an order for a large amount of lumber—a rush order at that.†   (source)
  • And these chaps too had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple.†   (source)
  • I respect your scruple, sir; but in this case I believe true delicacy requires you to do as I ask.†   (source)
  • Amory would have put him on the rack without a scruple.†   (source)
  • ] In your place I don't think I should have the smallest scruple in doing so.†   (source)
  • I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence.†   (source)
  • Or has my probable advancement to riches and honour, given this scruple birth?'†   (source)
  • Even very intelligent people did not scruple to wage war on a vice which they did not understand.†   (source)
  • "I think I shall have no scruple in saying that to YOU," she bravely returned.†   (source)
  • Your sister being with you, my love, I have no scruple at all.†   (source)
  • They did not scruple much in the case of Athos.†   (source)
  • It was because of his likeness to his father, she did not scruple to tell him.†   (source)
  • I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely well.†   (source)
  • She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her without scruple to forget her own grief.†   (source)
  • "Thou art no good knight if thou dost scruple at it," said Waldemar.†   (source)
  • I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change.†   (source)
  • 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 his gray hairs.†   (source)
  • She resented it, had a scruple picked up Heaven knows where, or, as she felt, sent by Nature (who is invariably wise); yet she could not resist sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman, not a girl, of a woman confessing, as to her they often did, some scrape, some folly.†   (source)
  • And by a scruple of conscience, also.†   (source)
  • But they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with its unities: they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion for professional purposes without delicacy or scruple (for example, Sydney Carton and the ghost in Hamlet!†   (source)
  • …no mistress, in later years, has ever been able to give me, since one has doubts of them at the moment when one believes in them, and never can possess their hearts as I used to receive, in her kiss, the heart of my mother, complete, without scruple or reservation, unburdened by any liability save to myself) was that it should be my mother who came, that she should incline towards me that face on which there was, beneath her eye, something that was, it appears, a blemish, and which I…†   (source)
  • He knew too much about her, and even at the moment when it was essential that he should show himself at his best, he did not scruple to let her see how much he knew.†   (source)
  • …would hardly think to parade at the time, and which consequently, and as affecting the least influential class of mankind, have all but dropped into oblivion, lend color to something for the truth whereof I do not vouch, and hence have some scruple in stating; something I remember having seen in print, though the book I can not recall; but the same thing was personally communicated to me now more than forty years ago by an old pensioner in a cocked hat with whom I had a most…†   (source)
  • You do not scruple to make a libertine of that noble man; you call him a sensualist as coolly as if you were speaking the truth, and yet it would not be possible to find a chaster man.†   (source)
  • I had a scruple, but I overcame it.†   (source)
  • The transaction had justified itself by its results: she saw now how absurd it would have been to let any primitive scruple deprive her of this easy means of appeasing her creditors.†   (source)
  • For a time Swann stood still there, heartbroken, bewildered, and yet happy; gazing at this envelope which Odette had handed to him without a scruple, so absolute was her trust in his honour; through its transparent window there had been disclosed to him, with the secret history of an incident which he had despaired of ever being able to learn, a fragment of the life of Odette, seen as through a narrow, luminous incision, cut into its surface without her knowledge.†   (source)
  • What he said was to this effect: "Hitherto I have been but the witness, little more; and I should hardly think now to take another tone, that of your coadjutor, for the time, did I not perceive in you,—at the crisis too—a troubled hesitancy, proceeding, I doubt not, from the clash of military duty with moral scruple—scruple vitalized by compassion.†   (source)
  • But she nevertheless made no scruple of abounding in her cousin's sense and pretending to sigh for the charms of her native land.†   (source)
  • 'I have no scruple in saying, in the presence of our friends here, that I am a man who has, for some years, contended against the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.'†   (source)
  • The trapper made no reply to the harsh suspicion which the other did not scruple to utter without the smallest delicacy, notwithstanding the explanations and denials to which he had just listened.†   (source)
  • That he is a half-breed we know, for Mohegan does not scruple to call him openly his kinsman; that he is well educated we know.†   (source)
  • Now you had better go; for if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful scruple.†   (source)
  • When he first bought her, she was, as she said, a woman delicately bred; and then he crushed her, without scruple, beneath the foot of his brutality.†   (source)
  • They transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae from pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them.†   (source)
  • "Is it possible," said he, "that where your liberty is at stake you can allow any such scruple to deter you from obtaining it?"†   (source)
  • "I can do so little—have I done it all well?" is the perpetually recurring thought; and there are no voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory demands to divert energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple.†   (source)
  • This little innocent touch of natural taste did not please the elder sister at the moment, and she did not scruple to betray it.†   (source)
  • "But, however that may be," resumed the nephew, glancing at him with deep distrust, "I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to means."†   (source)
  • The American system, which divides the local authority among so many citizens, does not scruple to multiply the functions of the town officers.†   (source)
  • She had no scruple with regard to him.†   (source)
  • And most of the people here are in just the same case—see-sawing and edging first to one side and then to the other, so overcome with caution and scruple that they never dare to take any decided step.†   (source)
  • D'Artagnan put his forty pistoles into his pocket without any scruple—on the contrary, thanking his Majesty greatly.†   (source)
  • Now the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church—yet all keep silent!†   (source)
  • They entertain a presumptuous confidence in their strength, and as they do not suppose that they can henceforward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of their fellow-creatures, they do not scruple to show that they care for nobody but themselves.†   (source)
  • He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before.†   (source)
  • Prince John, in the meanwhile, occupied his castle, and disposed of his domains without scruple; and seeking at present to dazzle men's eyes by his hospitality and magnificence, had given orders for great preparations, in order to render the banquet as splendid as possible.†   (source)
  • The general impression seemed to be, that as an explanation of Mr Gregsbury's political conduct, it did not enter quite enough into detail; and one gentleman in the rear did not scruple to remark aloud, that, for his purpose, it savoured rather too much of a 'gammon' tendency.†   (source)
  • He did not scruple to add that her being at home for a while would be a great advantage to everybody.†   (source)
  • Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart.†   (source)
  • As the ordinary notions of equity and morality no longer suffice to explain and justify all the innovations daily begotten by a revolution, the principle of public utility is called in, the doctrine of political necessity is conjured up, and men accustom themselves to sacrifice private interests without scruple, and to trample on the rights of individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public purpose.†   (source)
  • He would probably have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds.†   (source)
  • Since then, indeed, distrust of himself, reverence for her, and the wish to place her in a situation above that which he then filled, had caused him some uneasy moments; but the directness and simplicity of his character had early afforded the required relief; and he soon came to feel that the woman who would not hesitate to accept him for her husband would not scruple to share his fortunes, however humble.†   (source)
  • Under ordinary circumstances, I should scruple to entreat the indulgence of Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield, but-'†   (source)
  • Really, madame, this is a scruple which naturally must occur to a pure mind like yours, but which would easily yield before sound reasoning.†   (source)
  • Because, if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my place, and give Anne your arm to her father's door.†   (source)
  • 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.†   (source)
  • You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor caprices — all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling — all scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination — you will hasten to enter into that union at once.†   (source)
  • She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the dread of being without it—the dread of that ignorance which would make her unjust or hard—overcame every scruple.†   (source)
  • And here I have no scruple in confessing that I look upon this peculiar system of election as the only means of bringing the exercise of political power to the level of all classes of the people.†   (source)
  • After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.†   (source)
  • "I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, "without any scruple, in a very few minutes."†   (source)
  • But I have thought of what you speak of, and I have come here to-day without scruple simply because I consider your brother and you two very different parties.†   (source)
  • And I dare say that if I had wanted to make such a bargain, and if I could have paid him enough, and if he could have done it in the dark, free from all risk, he would have taken any life with as little scruple as he took my money.†   (source)
  • 'Don't scruple to answer freely, man.†   (source)
  • If Mr. Copperfield, or if you, Mr. Traddles, feel the least scruple, in giving this promise, I beg you to take time to consider it.'†   (source)
  • …you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere — though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement.†   (source)
  • "She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to his wife, whom he could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society.†   (source)
  • His eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship, after a while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out: "What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam?†   (source)
  • She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage.†   (source)
  • "Since the idea had been started in the very quarter which ought to dictate, he had no scruple," he said, "in confessing his judgement to be entirely on that side.†   (source)
  • "Yes," said Valentine; "and I have but one scruple,—that of leaving my dear grandmother's remains, which I had undertaken to watch."†   (source)
  • —Why he should feel such a scruple, why he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not perceive.†   (source)
  • The violence of the language used against him in public was extreme, and in a political meeting they did not scruple to compare him indirectly to the treacherous Arnold.†   (source)
  • Thenardier, masterful and phlegmatic, cauterized the scruple with this saying: "Jean Jacques Rousseau did even better!"†   (source)
  • "I do," said the Preceptor, "nor do I scruple to do aught for advancement of the Order—but there is little time to find engines fitting."†   (source)
  • Tim's head being powdered like a twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied with great nicety, strangers detected a close resemblance to him at the first glance, and this leading them to suspect that the other must be his wife, and emboldening them to say so without scruple, Mrs Linkinwater grew very proud of these achievements in time, and considered them among the most successful likenesses she had ever painted.†   (source)
  • The sovereign, who has under his control the lives, the property, and sometimes the honor of the men whom he employs, does not scruple to allow them a great latitude of action, because he is convinced that they will not use it to his prejudice.†   (source)
  • She was a fine woman, had had a decent education, was brought forward by some cousins, thrown by chance into Mr Elliot's company, and fell in love with him; and not a difficulty or a scruple was there on his side, with respect to her birth.†   (source)
  • I made allowance for Steerforth's light way of treating the subject, and, considering it with reference to the staid air of gravity and antiquity which I associated with that 'lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard', did not feel indisposed towards my aunt's suggestion; which she left to my free decision, making no scruple of telling me that it had occurred to her, on her lately visiting her own proctor in Doctors' Commons for the purpose of settling her will in my favour.†   (source)
  • She might scruple to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company that could lessen her sense of such feelings.†   (source)
  • But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.†   (source)
  • Suppose, for instance, the prisoner, as is more than probable, to have served under Napoleon—well, can you expect for an instant, that one accustomed, at the word of his commander, to rush fearlessly on the very bayonets of his foe, will scruple more to drive a stiletto into the heart of one he knows to be his personal enemy, than to slaughter his fellow-creatures, merely because bidden to do so by one he is bound to obey?†   (source)
  • On the evening of the day when she had handed over her two little ones to Magnon, with express intention of renouncing them forever, the Thenardier had felt, or had appeared to feel, a scruple.†   (source)
  • Without scruple—without apology—without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover.†   (source)
  • —Jew or Gentile, thy fate would be the same; for thou hast to do with them that have neither scruple nor pity.†   (source)
  • But Dobbin would not allow this good nature and generosity to be balked, and so accommodated Mr. Osborne with a few pound notes, which the latter took after a little faint scruple.†   (source)
  • And one day when Anne was walking with only the Musgroves, one of them after talking of rank, people of rank, and jealousy of rank, said, "I have no scruple of observing to you, how nonsensical some persons are about their place, because all the world knows how easy and indifferent you are about it; but I wish anybody could give Mary a hint that it would be a great deal better if she were not so very tenacious, especially if she would not be always putting herself forward to take place…†   (source)
  • …spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and if he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke either from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to dance.†   (source)
  • So that whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among the Dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after her.†   (source)
  • Through a conscientious scruple.†   (source)
  • That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from us I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept such an accommodation.†   (source)
  • "It were sin to doubt it, maiden," replied Ivanhoe; "and I repose myself on thy skill without further scruple or question, well trusting you will enable me to bear my corslet on the eighth day.†   (source)
  • She talked to her perpetually about Major Dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple of declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had behaved most cruelly regarding him.†   (source)
  • My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him.†   (source)
  • Having made this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but filling both cups, and saying, in the Saxon fashion, " 'Waes hael', Sir Sluggish Knight!" he emptied his own at a draught.†   (source)
  • These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbes rather than priests, prelates rather than bishops.†   (source)
  • With no small wonder he received his master's commands to admit the holy man immediately; and, having previously manned the entrance to guard against surprise, he obeyed, without further scruple, the commands which he had received.†   (source)
  • I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and refinement.†   (source)
  • Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart that Osborne was gone, for during George's presence, the other had played but a very secondary part in the household, and Osborne did not scruple to show his contempt for the stout civilian.†   (source)
  • …his affections from her: how she had borne everything—poverty, neglect, coldness from the being whom she most loved—and all for the sake of her child; how, finally, and by the most flagrant outrage, she had been driven into demanding a separation from her husband, when the wretch did not scruple to ask that she should sacrifice her own fair fame so that he might procure advancement through the means of a very great and powerful but unprincipled man—the Marquis of Steyne, indeed.†   (source)
  • But you, Sir Knight, what is yours, when you appeal without scruple to that which you deem most holy, even while you are about to transgress the most solemn of your vows as a knight, and as a man of religion?†   (source)
  • —She had been extremely surprized, never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in urging him to the utmost.†   (source)
  • —Then, with the gladness which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no longer.†   (source)
  • But although no man with less scruple made his ordinary habits and feelings bend to his interest, it was the misfortune of this Prince, that his levity and petulance were perpetually breaking out, and undoing all that had been gained by his previous dissimulation.†   (source)
  • Don't scruple.†   (source)
  • This was, indeed, an event which, in his ardour for the Saxon cause, he could not have anticipated, and even when the disinclination of both was broadly and plainly manifested, he could scarce bring himself to believe that two Saxons of royal descent should scruple, on personal grounds, at an alliance so necessary for the public weal of the nation.†   (source)
  • Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused; and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness, there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.†   (source)
  • …neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment…†   (source)
  • Catherine found that John Thorpe had given the message; and Miss Tilney had no scruple in owning herself greatly surprised by it.†   (source)
  • Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences.†   (source)
  • As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and violoncello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room.†   (source)
  • The brightest glow was instantly spread over Isabella's features, all care and anxiety seemed removed, her spirits became almost too high for control, and she called herself without scruple the happiest of mortals.†   (source)
  • That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character, had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wanton ill-nature.†   (source)
  • …business and dissipation, had in some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain, fancying myself indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, 'I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.†   (source)
  • Your sister need not have any scruple even of visiting HER, which, to say the truth, has been a little the case, and very naturally; for we only knew that Mrs. Jennings was the widow of a man who had got all his money in a low way; and Fanny and Mrs. Ferrars were both strongly prepossessed, that neither she nor her daughters were such kind of women as Fanny would like to associate with.†   (source)
  • The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more incurable nature.†   (source)
  • Miss Brinklow, however, had no such scruples.†   (source)
  • The scruples are all on Bridey's part, anyway; the widow is madly tough."†   (source)
  • I think Bridey's scruples only extend to her sleeping under the same roof with me.†   (source)
  • We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials--namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.†   (source)
  • She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position.†   (source)
  • He had suffered some complicated scruples about this kiss: but had decided in the end that it was permissable.†   (source)
  • Lincoln had genuine constitutional scruples, but his conservatism in everything pertaining to slavery was also dictated by political and strategic considerations.†   (source)
  • She must have shut herself up in a room in the country to write, and been torn asunder by bitterness and scruples perhaps, though her husband was of the kindest, and their married life perfection.†   (source)
  • More and more, too, there crept into the journal the comments of the professional soldier, between the prayers and the scruples—criticism of command (of Bragg after Chickamauga), satisfaction and an impersonal pride in maneuver or gunnery ("the practice of Marlowe's battery excellent"), and finally the admiration for the feints and delays executed by Johnston's virtuosity on the approaches to Atlanta, at Buzzard's Roost, Snake Creek Gap, New Hope Church, Kenesaw Mountain ("there is…†   (source)
  • …—what there could have been between papa and a man who to my certain knowledge was never in a Jefferson church but three times in his life—the once when he first saw Ellen, the once when they rehearsed the wedding, the once when they performed it; —a man that anyone could look at and see that, even if he apparently had none now, he was accustomed to having money and intended to have it again and would have no scruples about how he got it—that man to discover Ellen inside a church.†   (source)
  • He felt no moral scruples.†   (source)
  • …combed ditch-banks and weed-beds, made and worked a garden as well at my own home in town as here, not to speak of neighbors, friends whose alms I might have accepted, since necessity has a way of obliterating from our conduct various delicate scruples regarding honor and pride; that I stayed for shelter, who had a roof of my own in fee simple now indeed; or that I stayed for company, who at home could have had the company of neighbors who were at least of my own kind, who had known me…†   (source)
  • His inexperience, his errors, his utter lack of business judgment and his scruples about close dealing were the same as Hugh's.†   (source)
  • She was not above selling a poor grade of lumber for the price of good lumber if she thought she would not be detected, and she had no scruples about black-guarding the other lumber dealers.†   (source)
  • I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy.†   (source)
  • Hitherto Lily had been undisturbed by scruples.†   (source)
  • The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples that charmed me.†   (source)
  • I had the strongest scruples about poverty and starvation.†   (source)
  • You could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you had scruples.†   (source)
  • So we circled about, with terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close.†   (source)
  • That it is apt to be hampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples?†   (source)
  • But, mindful of paramount obligations I strive against scruples that may tend to enervate decision.†   (source)
  • But your scruples: do they move as in a dusk?†   (source)
  • The mention of the dinner dispelled Miss Stepney's last scruples.†   (source)
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