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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



... tell him when I next visit Beorminster, my love. Indeed, but that he takes this wretched murder so much to heart I would have told him to-day. Still, you need not scruple to wear it, dearest, for your aunt and my mother are both agreed that you will make ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... believed possible to have been caused by the course which I had determined to pursue; it struck upon my heart with an awe and heaviness which will accompany the accomplishment of an important and irrevocable act, even though no doubt or scruple remains to make it possible that the agent should wish ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... 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 peace ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... epigram when she repeated it, and she might be relied upon to repeat it and give all the glory to its originator. Lady Maria knew there were people who, hearing your good things, appropriated them without a scruple. To-night she said a number of good things to Emily in summing up her guests and ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... 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 where their ...
— 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

... so much degraded literature from its natural rank, as the practice of indecent and promiscuous dedication; for what credit can he expect who professes himself the hireling of vanity, however profligate, and without shame or scruple, celebrates the worthless, dignifies the mean, and gives to the corrupt, licentious, and oppressive, the ornaments which ought only to add grace to truth, and loveliness to innocence? Every other kind of adulation, however shameful, however mischievous, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... considered a fitting opportunity, which they are actually thirsting after. A hint from their moolahs, and the display of the green flag, would rally around it every Mussulman. In March last, the population made no scruple of declaring that the Feringhi raj (English rule) was at an end; and some even disputed payment of the revenue, saying it was probable they should have to pay it again to another Government! They have given out a report ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church. 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. Happy those who approach them! Being persons of influence, they create ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... to get into the house—and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been insurmountable; for I am terribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without me; but she soon returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... a 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. I ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... in health to this day. Is it, then, always permitted for me to pray thus unconditionally respecting temporal concerns? No; thou must not venture to do so, if, whilst you ask, you doubt. But shouldst thou ever be inclined by God's Spirit to pray thus, without doubt or scruple, in a filial temper, and with simplicity of heart, resting on the true foundation, and in genuine faith, then pray thus by all means! None dare censure thee; God ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... authorities upon himself; but neither in Paris nor in Rome was he, the pupil of Rene and of Trophana, convicted of guilt. All the same, though proof was wanting, his enormities were so well accredited that there was no scruple as to having him arrested. A warrant was out against him: Exili was taken up, and was lodged in the Bastille. He had been there about six months when Sainte-Croix was brought to the same place. The prisoners were numerous just then, so the governor had his new ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... men, and who had not been held sternly to an accounting for his acts; the man with the six-shooter and the skill to use it more swiftly and accurately than the average man; the man with the mind which did not scruple at murder. He found much to encourage him, little to oppose him. "The crowd from both East and West had now arrived. The town was full of gold-hunters. Expectation lighted up the countenance of every new-comer. Few had ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... as if he could, joyously and entirely without scruple, have brained young Gordon, to whom the next dance belonged, and who came just at this climaxing moment to claim Patricia. But there was no help for it, short of a cold-blooded and rather embarrassing deed of violence, and the hard-won confidence ended pretty ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... sick man held as captive Seven years within the mountain Of the wicked goddess Venus!' But to-day the case is different And more pleasing; there is nothing Which conflicts with any canon. There is only a slight scruple— If I've heard right—with the Baron. You, my Werner, have been faithful, But I read 'neath all this quiet Resignation to your duty, That reluctantly you sang here, As a caged-up bird is singing. Oft you've asked for your dismission, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... in the Isle of Man, and now supposed to be keeping guard against the incursions of rats and mice into my chambers in London? Tom is, as you know, on pretty good terms with some of my friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts without scruple, and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of demeanour, and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame have reached across the Channel? However, an answer must be returned to the inquiry, as monsieur's face was bent down to mine with a look of polite anxiety; so I, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the buoy to a harpoon, in the killing of a sea-unicorn. They gave to Captain Ross a piece of dried sea-unicorn's flesh, which appeared to have been half roasted. This gentleman had already seen them eat dried flesh; and he now had an opportunity of ascertaining that they did not scruple to eat flesh in any state; for, one of them who had a bag full of marine-birds, took out one and devoured ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... another carpenter at work in the loft, a little wizened old man. He always brought a peculiar kind of yellow bread, and shared it with the children, who loved it, and took as much as they wanted without scruple, so that the poor old man must have had short-commons himself sometimes. He could draw all kinds of things—fish with scales, ships in full sail, horses, coaches, people—and Beth often made him get out his big broad pencil and do designs for her on the new white boards. When he was within ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... established, it was easy to make another. Tennessee was admitted in 1796, without scruple, on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... should receive no harm, and that his own safety depended upon hers. He did not say so, but under other circumstances he would have as ruthlessly appropriated her for himself as Morgan intended to do, and without the shadow of a scruple. ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... 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 wont, of patriarchal ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... cannot you comprehend, my straight-forward Belinda, that if you make Clarence Hervey heartily jealous, let the impediments to your union be what they may, he will acknowledge himself to be heartily in love with you? I should make no scruple of frightening him within an inch of his life, for his good. Sir Philip Baddely was not the man to frighten him; but this Mr. Vincent, by all ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... for the most part upon cocoa-nuts, which served me both for meat and drink. On the eighth day I came near the sea, and saw some white people like myself, gathering pepper, of which there was great plenty in that place. This I took to be a good omen, and went to them without any scruple. They came to meet me as soon as they saw me, and asked me in Arabic who I was, and whence I came. I was overjoyed to hear them speak in my own language, and satisfied their curiosity by giving them an account of my shipwreck, and how I fell into the hands of the negroes. 'Those ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... by their pride, that they deserved a fall by the sword of the Saracen." It was, in truth, as the great Sancho of Navarre declared in his charter of foundation to the abbey of Albelda, "Our ancestors sinned without scruple; they daily transgressed the commandments of the Lord, and so to punish them as they had deserved and to make them turn to Him, the Most Just of Judges delivered them to a barbarous people." In truth, the mass of the land had never been converted to Catholic Christianity ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... know what a strong hand is yours, and what a brave, noble heart," Isabelle replied; "and I do not scruple to acknowledge that I love you for it with all my heart; feeling sure that you will respect my frank avowal, and not endeavour to take advantage of it. When I first saw you, de Sigognac, dispirited and desolate, in that dreary, half-ruined chateau, where your youth was passing in sadness and solitude, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... was concerning the rights of popes over kings—a question which, having been intensified by the Reformation, naturally came to a crisis after the Gunpowder Plot. James I. then instituted an oath of allegiance as a test of Catholic loyalty, and many Catholics took the oath without scruple, including the Archpriest Blackwell. Cardinal Bellarmine thereupon wrote a letter of rebuke to the latter, and Pope Paul V. sent a brief forbidding Catholics either to take the oath or to attend Protestant churches (October 1606). But it is remarkable that, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... of the New Testament has no scruple in calling men 'saints' who had many sins, and none in calling men perfect who had many imperfections; and it does so, not because it has any fantastic theory about religious emotions being the measure of moral purity, but partly for the reasons already referred to, and partly because it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... he grumbled, "always the Abbot Maldon. Oh! what a wicked thief must be that high-stomached Spaniard who does not scruple first to make orphans and then to rob them? A black-hearted traitor, too. Do you know that at this moment he stirs up rebellion in the north? Well, I'll see him on the rack before I have done. Have you a ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... him 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 least, she wisely resolved to make the best of things. It could not last forever. ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... massacres and plunderings which Sulla commanded or permitted, not one was baser than Caius Verres. The crimes that he committed would be beyond our belief if it were not for the fact that he never denied them. He betrayed his friends, he perverted justice, he plundered a temple with as little scruple as he plundered a private house, he murdered a citizen as boldly as he murdered a foreigner; in fact, he was the most audacious, the most cruel, the most shameless of men. And yet he rose to high office at home and ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... some muscular force: all isolated attempts were vain. I was conscious, nevertheless, of a curious sensation of numbness in the arms, which recalled to mind my forgotten experiments in church. No rappings were heard, and some of the participants did not scruple to pronounce the whole ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... of a coming reaction. He must seize the exact moment for deserting a falling cause. He has seen so many institutions from which much had been expected produce mere disappointment, that he has no hope of improvement. There is nothing in the state which he could not, without a scruple, join in defending or destroying." Compare with these scathing words his estimate of the character of Halifax, the Whig: "The most estimable of the statesmen who were formed in the corrupt and licentious Whitehall of the ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson

... immediately in the graces of the military authorities. Quietly, privately, secretly, he pursued his quest, seeking out likely individuals whom he impressed into the service of His Majesty with not so much as a scruple as to means, fair or foul. Blackmail he employed freely and the pressure of unpaid debts reaped for him a harvest ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... man. We left the room, he leaning upon my arm. The surgeon and parent both pronounced me innocent of the young man's death. Those who still remained in the house, more particularly the hostess, appeared disappointed, and did not scruple to hint their doubts. Until the coroner's inquest sat, which was in the afternoon, the father of the stranger never left my side, but seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in conversing about his son. The jury, after ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... 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 ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... I here only speak of robbers by profession; but there are also amateurs, who, beneath the cover of a well-established reputation, make small acquisitions slyly and unsuspectedly. They are very honest people they say, who with little scruple indulge their propensity for a rare book, a miniature, a cameo, a mosaic, a manuscript, a print, a medal, or a jewel that pleases them; they are called Chipeurs. If the Chipeur be rich, no heed is paid to him, he is too ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various

... with their daughters to young pigeons who had not a branch to roost on. Some say that the fox, who had long been deeply discontented at the loss of his ancestors' kingdom and of his own wealth, which he dissipated so carelessly, did not scruple to advise Choo Hoo how to proceed. Be that as it may, I should be the last to accuse any one of disloyalty without evident proof; be that as it may, the stir and commotion grew so great among the wood-pigeons, that presently the news of it reached ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... determined to give up the endeavour. 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 it was impossible that he should write to the house without some message, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... appears always intellectually illumined, with its background of scientific corollaries and logical consequences. It is not abandoned to itself, to wreak itself on expression, but is checked by the challenge of doubt or scientific curiosity or moral scruple. His verse thus unites in rare degree the qualities of lyrical ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... veer about, to stir and lighten. Why, he suddenly asked himself, was it that Julia would not sell the bulb? Because—the answer was so absurdly simple he wondered it had not occurred to him before—because it was the Van Heigens' present, and one cannot sell presents. He perfectly understood the scruple, honoured it even; but he also saw quite plainly that, though it prevented her from selling the daffodil, it did not stand in the way of its being sold. She could not, of course, authorise the sale, any more than she could conduct it; but that was no reason ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... professed 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 to take her class, he replied, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... find himself greatly helped in his benevolent project by Mr. George Boult, a circumstance surprising the man to whom the character of the successful draper was not unknown. That he would have accepted on the widow's behalf without scruple anything that could be got, was what was expected of him; instead of which he received all the rich man's propositions coldly, and did not even ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... you back. Spurling's a hard-pressed man and he's dangerous. You can judge of what he is capable by what has just happened. He's cunning and, in his way, he's brave; he wouldn't scruple to take your life. Your best policy is to wait—either here or at God's Voice, as you think best. The ice will soon be unsafe to travel; already a mile from here, where the river flows rapidly round from the south-west, the part on the inside bend is rotten. I had to guide Spurling ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... about majorities and natural rights either—for the country west of the Ohio! He's preparing to govern the Mississippi Territory like a conquered province. Mark my words, Mr. Rand, she'll find a Buonaparte—some young demagogue, some ambitious upstart without scruple or a hostage to fortune some common soldier like Buonaparte or ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... his indignation of the year before, went in search of Vinton and deprived that young man of a pint of gin without a scruple. He and Cynthia then sneaked behind the house and did away with the liquor. Other couples were drinking, all of them surreptitiously, Leonard Gates having laid down the law in no uncertain manner, and all of the brothers were ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... fortune, and that she might suit me. Sheykh Yussuf is to negotiate the affair and to see if the woman herself likes me for a mistress, and I am to have her on trial for a time, and if I like her and she me, Sheykh Yussuf will buy her with my money in his name. I own I have very little scruple about the matter, as I should consider her price as an advance of two or three years' wages and tear the paper of sale as soon as she had worked her price out, which I think would be a fair bargain. But I must see first whether Feltass (the Copt) really wants to sell her or only ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... mentions his being in this battle, and does not scruple to admit that he made rather a precipitate retreat, "relicta non ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... considering money I was right!" (exclaimed Jemima, altering her tone of voice) "as the only means, after my loss of reputation, of obtaining respect, or even the toleration of humanity, I had not the least scruple to secrete a part of the sums intrusted to me, and to screen myself from detection by a system of falshood. But, acquiring new principles, I began to have the ambition of returning to the respectable part of society, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... have held the baptizing of infants 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 ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... can accept it, but not to force it on any against their will, then I shall take the gods and heroes of your country to witness that I came for your good and was rejected, and shall do my best to compel you by laying waste your land. I shall do so without scruple, being justified by the necessity which constrains me, first, to prevent the Lacedaemonians from being damaged by you, their friends, in the event of your nonadhesion, through the moneys that you pay to the Athenians; ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... not wish you to answer in less than a month. I shall be richly content with a letter from you some day early in July; though, if you get anyhow settled before then, pray let me know it immediately; 't would give me much satisfaction. Concerning the Unitarian chapel, the salary is the only scruple that the most rigid moralist would admit as valid. Concerning the tutorage, is not the salary low, and absence from your family unavoidable? London is the only fostering soil for genius. Nothing more occurs just now; so I will leave you, in mercy, one small white spot empty below, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... with a threatening look, and thereupon, beside herself with fear, thinking that he was going to strike her, she tremblingly unfastened her hat. The water was dripping from her skirts. He kept on growling. Nevertheless, a sudden scruple seemed to come to him, for he ended ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... it carried in its basket you shall hear presently. You see, mother, many will blame us, though here and there some one may pity; but this state of things must not continue. I feel it more and more plainly with each passing day; and several years must yet elapse ere this scruple becomes wholly needless. I am too young to welcome as a guest every one whom this or that man presents to me. True, our reception-hall was my father's work-room and you, my own estimable, blameless mother, are the hostess here; but though superior ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... sad a dilemma? For Rose I would perish (pro tem.); For Dora I'd willingly stem a— (Whatever might offer to stem); But to make the invidious election,— To declare that on either one's side I've a scruple,—a grain, more affection, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... hand, extolled the wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a manner which gave great offence at Whitehall. James was particularly angry with the secretary of the imperial legation, who did not scruple to say that the eminent service which Halifax had performed in the debate on the Exclusion Bill had been requited with ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to that degree, that they looked upon their armies as irresistible and invincible while he commanded them; and he so won, indeed, upon the lower and meaner sort of people, that they passionately desired to have him "tyrant" over them, and some of them did not scruple to tell him so, and to advise him to put himself out of the reach of envy, by abolishing the laws and ordinances of the people, and suppressing the idle talkers that were ruining the state, that so he might act and take upon him the management of affairs, without ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... towards me in his sidelong fashion, until I find myself sitting up and holding out my hand into empty space, half expecting to feel another thin sinewy hand close round it. A bad man he was in many ways, my dears, cunning and wily, with little scruple or conscience; and yet so strange a thing is human nature, and so difficult is it for us to control our feelings, that my heart warms when I think of him, and that fifty years have increased rather than weakened the kindliness which I hear ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... strain of his desire to paint Lizzie's portrait, but his scruple vanished in one of her sweet sunny smiles, and he gave her all information about the train she would have to take to reach Southwick ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... philosopher's approval. The primal determination to be and to sell one's self dearly, is not different, except in its limits, from the moral determination to be and to attain to the uttermost. The whole force of life is behind every moral scruple, and guarantees the sanity even ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... 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, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... home!"—so that, for his entertainment, she could offer to walk him about though she mentioned that she had just been, for her own purposes, in a general prowl, taking everything in more susceptibly than before. He embraced her offer without a scruple and seemed to rejoice that he was to ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... must say, A round object. This distinction, however, is rather grammatical than logical. Since there 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, or an accusative case, can not under any ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... made no scruple, after the catastrophe, to state all that had passed between them and their master; it was spread through Cheltenham with the usual rapidity of all scandal, in a place where people have nothing to do but to talk about ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... little to be wondered at. But, whilst a large portion of the press has united with a powerful party of politicians in directing a continuous stream of abuse on to the heads of the white inhabitants of South Africa, whom they do not scruple to accuse of having created the recent disturbances in order to reap a money profit from them: it does not appear to have struck anybody that the real root of this crop of troubles might, after all, be growing nearer home. The truth of the ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... speak only from hearsay; what, then, I have heard I have no scruple in telling. And perhaps it is most becoming for one who is about to travel there to inquire and speculate about the journey thither, what kind we think it is. What else can one do ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato

... catchee no havee,' I think we may leave these two last out of consideration. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have barred jumping on the chest of a man who is afflicted with blindness; but as this particular individual has seen fit to humbug me to the top of his bent, I shall waive that scruple. Senor Taltavull, I'm with you in this to anything short of justifiable ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... such, do, for heaven's sake, open your eyes to your gross ignorance and low propensities or be not surprised if one day you find yourself face to face with some powerful scoundrel who would not scruple to crush you in all possible ways. "Harm watch, harm catch." I am going to give you in practical form what constitute the real cause at the back of a "Magnetic" personality—that which when developed makes a god-like man ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji

... 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 ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was a man of ready wit, a nimble tongue, and a manner which, on occasions when he could think of any one but himself, was affable and gracious. He was a scoffer of religion, an open foe of business scruple, and the avowed champion of every sort of artifice and device employed in ancient, mediaeval, or modern finance to further his own selfish desires, in the minimum of time, and at whatever cost to his fellow-man. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... though his aim in life might be no very exalted one, seemed singularly destitute of the impulse to better his fortunes by the exercise of his wits: it might even have been supposed, indeed, that he had a conscientious principle or religious scruple— only, he was by no means a religious man—against reaping profit from this particular nostrum which he was said to have invented. He never sold it; never prescribed it, unless in cases selected on ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... world of heat and enterprise. This gallant revived ungovernably the remembrances he for ever sought to stifle—all he had been and all he had seen, now past and gone for ever, as Annapla did not scruple to tell him when the demands of her Gift or a short temper compelled her. His boyhood in the dear woods, by the weedy river-banks, in the hill-clefts where stags harboured, on a shore for ever sounding with the enchanting sea—oh, sorrow! how these things ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... the firing of his pistol-shots at the out-house doors, the necessary vent of a passion not to be wreaked in words. She was patient, brave, lonely, and silent. But Mr. Wemyss Reid, who has had unexampled facilities for studying the Bronte papers, does not scruple to speak of Mr. Bronte's "persistent coldness and neglect" of his wife, his "stern and peremptory" dealings with her, of her "habitual dread of her lordly master"; and the manuscript which I have once already quoted alludes to the "hard and inflexible will which raised ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... Honesty and faithfulness in keeping vows are never rewarded, as little as kindness or justice. Oh no, they who practise sin and break the law, demand honour. Scoundrels betray noble men, and commit perjury without scruple. Envy follows men, these unhappy ones with their harsh voices and dreadful faces, who rejoice over the evil and ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... revealed Himself unto Abraham, to soothe his conscience as to the spilling of innocent blood, for it was a scruple that gave him much anguish of spirit. God assured him at the same time that He would cause pious men to arise among his descendants, who, like himself, would be a shield unto their generation.[107] As a further distinction, God gave him leave to ask what he would ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... have anything to do with Martin. He had escaped scot-free from those common enemies of mankind, the law and the police, but he was a marked man, even among his own friends, and they did not scruple to let him know plainly, that the sooner he packed himself off out of the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... "I was only tormenting you a little, and you must own you deserve that; but you can't suppose I meant half what I said; that is a betise I can't conceive you guilty of. You see I am much more charitable in my conclusions than you. You have no scruple in thinking me a wretch, though I am too good-natured to set you down for a fool. Come, brighten up, and I'll tell you all about the ball. How I hate it, were it only for having made your nose red! But really the thing in itself was detestable. Job himself ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... achieve. The effect upon corporations disappointed its authors and supporters. Many of them were strong enough still to defy state power and evade state laws, in protecting their interests, and this they did without scruple. The relation of capital and labor is even more strained than before the constitution was adopted. Capital soon recovered from a temporary intimidation... Labor still uneasy was still subject to the inexorable law of supply and ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... days later—at an hour when, as he well knew, Cynthia was at his own house—in order to hear the story. There were parts of it which she could not describe fully for lack of knowledge—the enterprise of Mike and Big Neddy, for example; but all that she knew she told frankly, and did not scruple to invoke her imagination to paint Beaumaroy's position, with its difficulties, demands, obligations—and temptations. He heard her with close attention, evidently amused, and watching her animated face with a keen and ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... cards, and generally going home drunk from every social gathering. The few English among them were no better, and we have the edifying spectacle of one giving away his daughter to another over a bottle of rum. The mightiest chieftains, including Le Gris, did not scruple to beg for whiskey, and parties of warriors were arriving from the Ohio river and Kentucky, with the scalps of white men dangling ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... There was no religious scruple that irritated my enlightened friend and master so much as this. He could not endure it. And, the sentiments of our great covenanted reformers being on his side, there is not a doubt that I was wrong. He lost all ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... one to answer. Men will sacrifice everything, sometimes even themselves, to their pride of logic and their love of victory. Bodin loses sight of humanity altogether in his eagerness to make out his case, and display his learning in the canon and civil law. He does not scruple to exaggerate, to misquote, to charge his antagonists with atheism, sorcery, and insidious designs against religion and society, that he may persuade the jury of Europe to bring in a verdict of guilty.[118] Yet there is no reason to doubt the sincerity ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... dreadful fate of the Strelitzes was too recent to be forgotten, and thousands who had the will had not the courage to revolt. As is well remarked by a writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, they thought it wiser to cut off their beards than to run the risk of incensing a man who would make no scruple in cutting off their heads. Wiser, too, than the popes and bishops of a former age, he did not threaten them with eternal damnation, but made them pay in hard cash the penalty of their disobedience. For many years, a very considerable revenue was collected from this source. The collectors ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... that heaven could give here below, must be found in the love of such a pre-eminent being. Lord Byron soon perceived the danger of these visits. Miss S—— was beautiful, witty, and charming; Lord Byron was twenty-six years of age. How many young men, in a similar case, would not without a scruple have thought that he had only to cull this flower which seemed voluntarily to tempt him? Lord Byron never entertained such an idea. Innocent of all intentional seduction, unable to render her happy, even if he could have returned ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... the methods of {179} military tyranny in which General Sarrail rejoiced without scruple and with a certain brutal pride. When once he found himself obliged to justify his conduct, he wrote: "The six inhabitants of Dianitza, who were shot, were Comitadjis. There is no doubt in that respect. Doubt ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... acuteness must have made him wince at the omen. For my part I do not see why either Harley or Grey should have hesitated, as far as any scruples of their own went. But I think any fair-minded person must admit the possibility of a scruple, though he may not share it, about the effect of seeing either the Tale of a Tub or Peter Plymley's Letters, with "By the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of——" on the title-page. The people who would have ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... Tehuas would reap many scalps; she would have had her revenge; and the deed could be so performed as to make those at the Rito believe that the Navajos were the perpetrators. This was her plan, and she did not feel the slightest scruple or compunction. For years she had been, among her own people, the butt of numberless insults and mortifications. Now it had gone so far that her life even was in imminent peril. Ere this should ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... appearance of justice if I were the only barrister in Paris; but as the streets are black with them, and as, only yesterday, Thuillier himself spoke of engaging some more important lawyer than myself, I have not the slightest scruple in refusing to defend him. Now, as to the marriage, in order that it may not be made the object of another brutal and forcible demand upon me, I here renounce it in the most formal manner, and nothing now prevents Mademoiselle Colleville from accepting ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... father by joining a dissenting sect. He was, in short, a very typical example of the serious middle-class man of the Wilberforce period, a man to whom duty was all in all, and who would revolutionise an empire or a continent for the satisfaction of a single moral scruple. Thus, while he was Puritan at the core, not the ruthless Puritan of the seventeenth, but the humanitarian Puritan of the eighteenth century, he had upon the surface all the tastes and graces of a man of culture. Numerous accomplishments of the lighter kind, such as drawing and painting ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... night. Happily, on her way she had noticed a little shelter hut, probably constructed by a village sportsman, under which he might conceal himself with his gun and await the game. This was made of dry heather, and branches of fir and chestnut. She had no scruple in pulling this to pieces, and conveying as much as she could carry at a time ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... 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 shewing on ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... with great difficulty he was able to procure even that sum. But the inhabitants of Lima, who considered the presence of Pizarro as absolutely necessary to their security, were much discontented at this procedure, and did not scruple to assert, that it was not the want of money, but the interested views of some of the viceroy's confidants, that prevented Pizarro ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... of advancing the interests of the church of Rome, they hesitated not to enter into the plot. Garnet was evidently a man of considerable attainments; nor is there any reason to believe that he was not, in many respects, an amiable man. His principles however, were such, that he could without scruple enter into a conspiracy against his sovereign and his country. There is reason to believe that he was privy to the design from the commencement, if he did not even suggest it to Catesby. At all events these Jesuits were made acquainted with all the proceedings of the conspirators, whom ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... show, Elizabeth knew that Gerald was really a sincere Catholic, that he considered himself a sovereign prince, and would consequently have small scruple about entering into a league against her, not only with the northern Irish chieftains, but even with the Catholic princes of the Continent. She ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... scruple likewise I can satisfy. She who is called the mother of the child Is not its parent, but the nurse of seed Implanted in begetting. He that sows Is author of the shoot, which she, if Heaven Prevent not, keeps as in a garden-ground. In proof whereof, to show that fatherhood May be without ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... this, may call me a poor-spirited fellow for allowing my wife to go out to service, who was bred a lady and ought to have servants herself: yet, for my part, I confess I did not feel one minute's scruple or mortification on the subject. If you love a person, is it not a pleasure to feel obliged to him? And this, in consequence, I felt. I was proud and happy at being able to think that my dear wife should be able ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... character of a resolve. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible, get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine'—we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... don't say you wouldn't.' He rambled on, turning about the room again, partly like a person whose sequences were naturally slow but also a little as if, though he knew what he had in mind, there were still a scruple attached to it that he was trying to ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... her, tried to utter something and failed. Then he fell back upon another very primitive and ancient expedient. Flinging his arms about her, he pressed her to his heart and kissed her again and again and again; nor, in her moment of complete surrender, did she scruple ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... time than that of a strong liquor. The Portuguese of the Amazon carry small quantities of Madeira wine, from time to time, to the Rio Negro; and the word madera, signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks, who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a scruple of celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they took for a fermented liquor extracted from the trunk of some tree, like palm-wine; and requested the guardian of the missions to decide, whether the vino de madera were wine from grapes, or the juice ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... was once deemed rather a degrading weapon of warfare; but now the term has grown to be a familiar one in trade circles. Even the great railway companies do not scruple to use the boycott in fighting their battles. One might imagine that both the thing and the name filled ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral. ...
— The Federalist Papers

... that Sir William was a man of small courage, though of overbearing manner, and he was mightily put to when he heard that he must fight with a man whom he justly regarded as being far more than his match. So craven did he become, indeed, that the gentlemen with him did not scruple to express their disgust loudly. Monsieur Dessin said that, unless Sir William did afford him satisfaction, he would trounce him publicly as a coward, but that he had one other alternative to offer. All ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... Greece. Nay, even orthodoxy itself did not refrain from a genial and sympathetic criticism. Aristophanes, for example, who, if there had been an established church, would certainly have been described as one of its main pillars, does not scruple to ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... intercourse has left upon my memory; and though ceasing to receive your letters would be foregoing an enjoyment, it could not affect the grateful regard I entertain for you. Pray, therefore, my dear Lady Dacre, do not scruple to bid me hold my peace, if by taking up your time and attention in your present sad circumstances [the recent loss of her daughter] I disturb or ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... going away; that she had done my boy a great wrong, and wished to make such reparation as she could, by telling me, at least, the truth. She did not scruple to say that she had loved him, nor that she had done everything in her power to keep him; though he had never so much as looked at her, she added, pathetically. She wished to have me know exactly how it happened, no matter what I ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... uncomfortable, therefore she remained silent upon that point. "You may depend that I shall not abuse your confidence" she continued, "I do not promise secrecy, but you may trust to my discretion without fear. Whenever you need advice, do not scruple to come to me, as I shall always be glad to give it," no doubt, but Isabel was the last person to ask advice, though she had the highest opinion ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... injunction teaches also that there is no generosity in those who hear the message giving, and no obligation laid on those who deliver it by their receiving, enough to live and work on. The less we obviously look for, the more shall we probably receive. A high-minded man need not scruple to take the 'hire'; a high-minded giver will not suppose that he has hired the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... "but one scruple of Gratiola (Hedge Hyssop) bruised, shall perceive evidently his effectual operation and virtue in purging mightily, and that in great abundance, watery, gross, and slimy tumours." Caveat qui sumpserit. On the principle of affinities, small ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... nothing to do with it: if you would just change your opinion about leaven, and alter your Doxology a little, our Italian scholars would think it a thousand years till they could give up their chairs to you. Yes, yes; it is chiefly religious scruple, and partly also the authority of a great classic,—Juvenal, is it not? He, I gather, had his bile as much stirred by the swarm of Greeks as our Messer Angelo, who is fond of quoting some passage ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... never before heard of such a jealous scruple, but though quite unexpected, this affection obliges me to make some return for it; I here promise you ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere

... pleasure in the present, and yet true to his virtues, honest up to his lights, kind to his neighbors, tempted perhaps in vain by the bright gin-palace,... often repaying the world's scorn with service, often standing firm upon a scruple;... everywhere some virtue cherished or affected, everywhere some decency of thought and courage, everywhere the ensign of man's ineffectual goodness,—ah! if I could show you this! If I could show you these men and women all the world over, in every stage of ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... quickly and help yourself, for no one would see you, and I would not tell. It was but fair you should take the worth of your money; but you were too great a blockhead. You looked at the good things there, and came away empty-handed. Strange, you would steal milk for the cat, and scruple to take a cake (which, I am sure, you earn ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers

... poet such as Shakespeare, to compare his wonderful creations with the rules they have acquired with so much labor, and, seeking in his living dramas only the application of the principles with which they are familiar, scruple not to condemn the immortal works of the greatest of all uninspired writers. Madame de Stael truly says: 'Those who believe themselves qualified to pronounce sentence upon the Beautiful, have more vanity than those who believe they possess genius.' Taste ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the more zealous politicians among them did not scruple to bring their sentiments even into the prayers of the church. We recollect an anecdote of a stout Whig minister of New Haven, who, during the occupation of the town by the British, was ordered to offer public prayers for the King, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... commission did not run. The authority of the Deputy-Sheriff of the shire was therefore called into play, and with his countenance the offending building was quickly razed to the ground. In his report of this business Claverhouse writes:—"My Lord, since I have seen the Act of Council, the scruple I had about undertaking anything without the bounds of these two shires is indeed frivolous, but was not so before. For if there had been no such act, it had not been safe for me to have done anything but what my order warranted; and since I knew it not, it was to me the same ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... Style and Manner, they pride themselves in, and have collected into one great Volume in Folio; in which Quaker-Wit and Irony are set up against Church, Presbyterian, and Independent Wit and Irony, without the least Scruple of the lawfulness of such Arms. In a word, their Author acts the Part of a Jack-Pudding, Merry Andrew, or Buffoon, with all the seeming Right, Authority, and Privilege, of the Member of some Establish'd Church of abusing all the World but themselves. ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... we 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 ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... inviolable by other nations, that it is usual to sacrifice their faith for nothing, by holding forth the right hand, not only in serious and important concerns, but even on every trifling occasion, and for the confirmation of almost every common assertion. They never scruple at taking a false oath for the sake of any temporary emolument or advantage; so that in civil and ecclesiastical causes, each party, being ready to swear whatever seems expedient to its purpose, endeavours both to prove and defend, although the venerable ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis

... agree with him, for he ripped out a string of oaths which he impartially divided among Ralles, the cowboys, and myself. I was decidedly sorry that I hadn't given the real letters, for his lordship clearly had no scruple about destroying them, and I knew few men whom I would have seen behind prison-bars with as little personal regret. However, no one had, so far as I could see, paid the slightest attention to the pony, and the probabilities ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... scruple to avow his share in the preparations for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. The Duchess of Nemours, her son Henri of Guise, and her brother-in-law the Duc d'Aumale were taken into their counsels, and ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... turned his steps southward, and walked down Broadway. It was a leisurely walk, for he had no scruple in stopping wherever he saw anything in the streets or in the shop windows that seemed to him worthy of attention. About the corner of Canal Street he was very much surprised at a boy who was on his knees, blacking the boots of an elderly gentleman—a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger

... is too manifestly displayed even at the earlier and more robust period of his life. It would be a mistake, of course, in dealing with a literary man of Coleridge's era, to apply the same standards as obtain in our own days. Wordsworth, as we have seen, made no scruple to accept the benevolences of the Wedgwoods. Southey, the type of independence and self-help, was, for some years, in receipt of a pension from a private source. But Coleridge, as Miss Meteyard's disclosures ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... said, "I see you are no poltroon[8]. It is for my own sake—I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple." ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... absolutely elongated by sympathetic despair. For, you must know, as far as his own feelings were concerned, sympathy alone influenced him. Personally, he was supremely indifferent about reaching the North Pole. In fact he did not believe in it at all, and made no scruple of saying so, when asked, but he seldom volunteered his opinion, being an extremely ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... that a man who was in favor of the Wilmot Proviso was as bitter an enemy to the South as one who incited a servile insurrection. These views were unceasingly pressed upon the South by the Northern Democracy, who, in their zeal to defeat the Republicans at home, did not scruple to misrepresent their aims in the most reckless manner. They were constantly misleading the public opinion of the slave States, until at last the South recognized no difference between the creed of Seward and the creed of Gerrit Smith, and ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... "as for your pecuniary distress, permit me to offer you my savings. My father is rich; I am his only child; he loves me, and I am sure he will never blame me. Have no scruple in accepting my offer; our property is derived from the Emperor; we do not own a penny that is not the result of his munificence. Is it not gratitude to him to assist his faithful soldiers? Take the ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... p-p-patience with you," Flexinna raged. 'You'll throw away your life for a mere scruple. You risk being made a Vestal every moment. Faltonius may be on the way here now. If I were in your place I'd make sure. I'd not wait for Almo. Any lad would do for me. You c-c-could make sure, if you had sense. Almo would forgive you and marry you anyway. Your father ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's obstinacy, or Scoutbush ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... our ignorance. All that we can say is that the scruple-mongers at Colossae taught doctrines which had points of contact with Essenism. They employed some affected interpretation of the Old Testament. They also were influenced by heathenism in their conception ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... 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 ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... paced the chamber, turning the matter over in his mind. Aye, he would use the lad should the need arise. Why scruple? Had he ever received aught but disdain and scorn at ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... office on the meats, holding the joint, according to the traditions of his order, carefully with the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand, whilst he carved. The pieces were placed on "trenchers" or slices of bread, and handed to the guests, who made no scruple of freely using their fingers. The bones and refuse of the food were placed on the table, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... which was to pay for Hugh's death and her favor, made a mockery of all the beauties of giving—a mockery, too, of her acceptance of them, whether tacitly or otherwise. A man who could kill without scruple, a woman-baiter, courteous that he might be cruel, tolerant that he might torment! By torture of her spirit and of her body he had brought her near death that he might gain the flavor of saving ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... which I was fain to set alongside of 'The Seven Virgins,' and omitted only through a scruple in tampering with two or three stanzas, necessary to the sense, but in all discoverable versions so barbarously uncouth as to be quite inadmissible. And yet 'The Holy Well' is one of the loveliest ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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 ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... bring him a numerous family, and he purchases male and female slaves who must labour and fish for him, and strengthen his force when engaged in warfare. These slaves are prisoners of war, and their descendants; the master's power over them is unlimited, and he even puts them to death without scruple. When the master dies, two of his slaves are murdered on his grave, that he may not want attendance in the other world; these are chosen long before the event occurs, but meet the destiny that awaits them, very philosophically. The continual wars which the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... eyes had struck and destroyed more than one of his predecessors. At the same time, the bent of his disposition carried him readily enough into intrigue, deceit, and cool remorseless villany. He was not retarded by any scruple, or abashed by any principle. But he did not lack sagacity. The power which he loved and abused was acquired and retained easily, because the exercise of his talents had always been quite in harmony with the natural flexion of his ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her. It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... to fill the sees of Liege and Milan may not scruple to dishonor the see of Cologne! But let us pray and hope; for suffer what we may, we cannot ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... "She has a lot of individuality. She's a serious young person; very practical-minded, I should say. They tell me she walks through mathematics like a young duchess through the minuet. Some other Wellesley girls were on the train and they did not scruple to attribute miraculous powers to her; a good sign, other girls liking her so much. They were very frank in ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... scruple of salt of tartar in a gill of water; add to it ten grains of cochineal; sweeten it with sugar. Give to an infant a quarter teaspoonful four times a day; two years old, one-half teaspoonful; from four years, a tablespoonful. Great care is required in the administration ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols



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



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