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Scruple   Listen
noun
Scruple  n.  
1.
A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.
2.
Hence, a very small quantity; a particle. "I will not bate thee a scruple."
3.
Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from motives of conscience. "He was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples."
To make scruple, to hesitate from conscientious motives; to scruple.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scruple" Quotes from Famous Books



... recommend to you a uniform life of justice and piety; always choosing the good rather than the bad side of every action: for this, say they what they will to the contrary, is not above the power of a reasonable being to practise: and doing so, you may without scruple say,—If there is foreknowledge of my actions, or they are decreed, I then am one who is foreknown or decreed to be happy. And this, without farther speculation, you will find the only means always to keep you so; for all men, of all denominations, fully allow this happy ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... every quivering nerve and fibre of her being. Gabriella was right, but George was her son; and had it been possible to secure George's happiness by sacrificing the right to the wrong, she would have made that sacrifice without hesitation, without scruple, and without regret. ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... the ingenuity of priests attributed them to the special favor of some particular deity. This feeling has not even yet quite died out. Even I can remember the time when many excellent persons had a scruple or prejudice against the use of chloroform, because they fancied that pain ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... once more in upon Grisell, who after her loss of blood, had, on reviving, been made to swallow a draught of which an infusion of poppy heads formed a great part, so that she lay, breathing heavily, in a deep sleep, moaning now and then. Her mother did not scruple to try to rouse her with calls of "Grizzy! Look up, wench!" but could elicit nothing but a half turn on the pillow, and a little louder moan, and Master Miles, who was still watching, absolutely refused to let his ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... journey,—having told some lie to her own daughter as to the cause of her brother's intended journey. He had not gone, but had come, drunk and degraded, back to the house. She had searched his pockets with less scruple than she had ever before felt, and had found his ticket for the vessel and the few sovereigns which were left to him. About him she could read the riddle plainly. He had stayed at his club till he was drunk, and had gambled away all his money. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... very time when it is most important to keep Mr. Gracedieu quiet," he said, "something has happened to excite—I might almost say to infuriate him. He has left his bed, and is walking up and down the room; and, I don't scruple to say, he is on the verge of madness. He insists on seeing you. Being wholly unable to control him in any other way, I have consented to this. But I must not allow you to place yourself in what may be a disagreeable position, ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... which he loved, as the only means of escaping the obligation of fighting against the cause of freedom. This resignation gave offence to the Court, and was a severe rebuke to the officers who did not share his scruple; but at London the Common Hall, in June, thanked him publicly as 'a true Englishman;' and the guild of merchants in Dublin addressed him in the strongest terms of approbation." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap, xxxiii. pp. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... Paul, quickly, "that our religion and service being right, and yours being wrong, you can attend our service without scruple, but I could not attend yours without sin. It would be a loss of time, a bad way to spend the Sabbath, or Sunday; the sin of curiosity, or the danger of being an encourager of, or countenancing, a false worship, unauthorized by God ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... rigorous measures of the National Convention were without avail, and her executions failed to break up the ring, or force the farmers to sell their corn. For it is a matter of history that the commissaries of the Convention did not scruple to guillotine those who withheld their grain from the market, and pitilessly executed those who speculated in foodstuffs. All the same, the corn was not forthcoming, and the townsfolk suffered ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... Indian, possibly with a suspicion that his bronzed skull was also perforated, as he fell across the limp body beneath him; but Jack Carleton had not fired, not because the opportunity was not inviting enough nor because he felt the least scruple about shooting one of the savages who were thirsting for his life, but he was afraid to discharge his piece before Otto ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... have ye to pray, or to sanctify the Sabbath? Is it not because God commands these duties? And do ye not go about them in obedience to God, notwithstanding of the sense of your own inability? How comes it then that ye make any more scruple of this? Hath not the same authority that gave the ten commands, given also this new command? And shall not disobedience be rebellion, and worse than witchcraft?(471) But when besides all this, it is the appointed end of all the commands, so that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... character, display some of that open favour, some of that interest in life's obscurer sides, which stamp the character of the true artist. Hang me, if you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself divested of the scruple of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to his great astonishment, two gigantic fellows were posted outside the door; who, upon his affirming that he must be allowed to enter his own room, seemed in some foreign and unintelligible language to support the negative of that proposition. Without further scruple or regard to their menacing gestures, he pressed forwards to the chamber door; but immediately after felt himself laid hold of by the two fellows—one at his legs, the other at his head—and, spite of his most indignant protests, carried down-stairs into the yard. There ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... again? My father is so deeply skilled in the Eastern knowledge, that I fear him. Too often has he, I well know, for a purse well filled with gold, prepared the sleep of death. Another would shudder at the thought; but he, who has dealt out death at the will of his employers, would scruple little to do so even to the husband of his own daughter; and I have watched him in his moods, and know his thoughts and wishes. What a foreboding of mishap has come over me this evening!—what a fear of evil! Philip is ill, 'tis true, but not so very ill. No! no! besides, his time ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... holds among many people with whom charitable agencies are brought into contact, and that their ideas of right and wrong are quite honestly outraged by the methods of these agencies. When they see the delay and caution with which relief is given, it does not appear to them a conscientious scruple, but as the cold and calculating action of a selfish man. It is not the aid that they are accustomed to receive from their neighbors, and they do not understand why the impulse which drives people to "be good to the poor" should ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... worthless position, and yet, once having taken it up, he could not abandon it. More than one gunfighter has been in the same place, forced to act as a public menace long after he has ceased to feel any desire to fight. Of selfish motives there remained not a scruple to him, but there was still the happiness of Lou Macon. If the boy were taken back to Lebrun's, it would be fatal to her. For even if Nelly wished, she could not teach her eyes new habits, and she would ceaselessly play on the heart ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... British military opinion. "The People here," he wrote home, "are the most designing, Artfull Villains in the World. They have not the least Idea of either Religion or Morality. Nor have they the least Scruple of taking the most solemn Oath on any Matter that can assist their Purpose, tho' they know the direct contrary can be clearly & evidently proved ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... scarcely visible until we were actually passing them. It is a tame and insignificant place, at present. At Berghem, a post or two further, I had another visit from the postmaster and his clerk, who made no scruple in asking me if I was the man who wrote books! We talk a great deal of our national intelligence in America, and certainly with truth, when we compare ourselves with these people in many important particulars; but blocks are not colder, or can have less real reverence ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... that the horse had a partiality for carrots, and was unable to gratify its taste; but with a sagacity that is almost incredible, the dog found the means of obtaining the succulent morsels for his friend, and this he did without scruple at his master's expense. There was something more than instinct in this dog's head. But any one who takes real notice of the habits and curious doings of animals must inevitably come to the conclusion that the theory is not tenable which maintains that ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... blood; nor cut thou less nor more, But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more, Or less, than a just pound, be it but so much As makes it light or heavy in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest, and all thy goods ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... estrange Francis from her. Brantome gives an instance of this in the following passage:—"I have heard related," he says, "by a person of good faith that the Constable de Montmorency, then in the highest favour, speaking of this matter of religion one day with the King, made no difficulty or scruple about telling him, that 'if he really wished to exterminate the heretics of his kingdom, he ought to begin at his Court and with his nearest relatives, mentioning the Queen his sister,' to which the King replied, 'Do not speak of her; she loves me too much. She will never believe ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... hallowed to Diana was—that you hated Ephesus. The dilemma, therefore, was this: either grant a toleration of this practice, or else farewell to all amicable intercourse for the Jews with the citizens. In fact, it was to proclaim open war if this concession were refused. A scruple of conscience might have been allowed for, but a scruple of this nature could find no allowance in any Pagan city whatever. Moreover, it had really no foundation. The truth is far otherwise than that Pagan deities were ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... vol. i, p. 536, note): "Gregory IX had no scruple in asserting the duty of the Church to shed the blood of heretics." In a brief of 1234 to the Archbishop of Sens, he says: Nec enim decuit Apostolicam Sedem, in oculis suis cum Madianita coeunte Judaeo, manum suam a sanguine prohibere, ne si secus ageret non custodire ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... happened with Mrs. Crayton: her servants made no scruple of mentioning the cruel conduct of their lady to a poor distressed lunatic who claimed her protection; every one joined in reprobating her inhumanity; nay even Corydon thought she might at least have ordered her to be taken ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... established constitution.—In all this, the plan of the "Montagnards" is a further advance on that of the Girondins; never was so insignificant a part assigned to the rulers nor so extensive a part to the governed. The Jacobins profess a respect for the popular initiative which amounts to a scruple.[1109] According to them the sovereign people should be sovereign de facto, permanently, and without interregnum, allowed to interfere in all serious affairs, and not only possess the right, but the faculty, of imposing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... exhibition of abject subserviency to party domination. Men who had stood boldly for woman suffrage in the legislature, men who had spoken for it on the platform in every county in the State, sat dumb as slaves in this convention, sacrificing without scruple a lifelong principle for the sake of a paltry political reward. While many of the papers had spoken earnestly in favor of the amendment, the Leavenworth Times, owned and edited by D. R. Anthony, was the only one of size and influence which demanded ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... using the present and making the best of it. She was utterly materialist and baldly practical. Her manners were frank and simple, she had suffered, she had studied the world and knew it, and used it without a scruple for her own advantage. The time and the court of Napoleon knew such women well: they had the fearless dignity of high rank, holding their own, in spite of all the Emperor's vulgarity; and the losses and struggles of their lives had given them a hard eye for the main chance, ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... visage 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 modest and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... hardly bring to their mere recollection the common acknowledged rule not to do as we would wish not done to us. From recent accounts it appears, that the entire coast of our island is not yet clear of those people called wreckers, who felt not a scruple to appropriate whatever they could seize of the lading of vessels cast ashore, and even whatever was worth tearing from the personal possession of the unfortunate beings who might be escaping but just alive from the most dreadful peril. The cruelty we have so largely attributed ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... She will talk to the patient who is too faint to move, without the least scruple, unless he is pale and unless, luckily for him, the muscles of the throat are affected ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale

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

... San Francisco lady, much "got up" in paint, emerald green velvet, Brussels lace, and diamonds, rattled continuously for the amusement of the company, giving descriptions of persons and scenes in a racy Western twang, without the slightest scruple as to what she said. In a few years Tahoe will be inundated in summer with similar vulgarity, owing to its easiness of access. I sustained the reputation which our country-women bear in America by looking a "perfect guy"; and feeling that I was a salient point for the speaker's ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... have had experience of one little trait in her character which condemns her a long way with me. After treating a person in the most familiar terms of equality for a long time, if any little thing goes wrong she does not scruple to give way to anger in a very coarse, unladylike manner. I think passion is the true test of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... superiority alone was as seven to one. The fierce fight was followed by terrible scenes. Most of the Francs-tireurs, who had not fallen in the engagement, effected a retreat, and on discovering this, the infuriated Germans, to whom the mere name of Franc-tireur was as a red rag to a bull, did not scruple to shoot down a number of ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... to Paris, and there, as in his native country, he had drawn the eyes of the 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 guest ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... said, "I would not take a million at the price of a single scruple.—Your friend ought to speak to M. Pons and have the woman ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. 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 ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Provinces and of the House of Austria, on the other 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 gross ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... poem, therefore, images and incidents have been borrowed, not merely without scruple, but on principle, from the incomparable ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... scruple to call the positive a degree of comparison; on the ground, that it does not imply either comparison, or degree. But no quality can exist, without existing in some degree: and, though the positive is very frequently ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... spite of the advice of his lawyer, has signed the imperfect paper like a lamb. To have spoken in the matter, he said, above all to have let the other party guess that he had seen a lawyer, would have "been like doubting his word." The scruple sounds oddly to one of ourselves, who have been brought up to understand all business as a competition in fraud, and honesty itself to be a virtue which regards the carrying out but not the creation of agreements. This single unworldly trait will account for much of that revolution ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was torn asunder. Having been occupied by the Amorites, it threw its lot in with theirs, keeping, however, sedulously in the background: while the princes of Qodshu waged war against the Pharaohs, undismayed by frequent reverses, Damascus did not scruple to pay tribute to Thutmosis III. and his descendants, or to enter into friendly relations with them. Meanwhile the Amorites had been overthrown, and Qodshu, ruined by the Asiatic invasion, soon became little ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

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

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

... 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, ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... thousand ways of getting at the truth,' replied Heister; 'for if anything does happen out of the very commonest way, is it not talked of in my house by those who come and go? But this thing is in everybody's mouth, and people don't scruple to say that there were a vast number of golden pieces in the purse—some ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... oppressive taxation imposed by their spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers detested the native Mahommedan princes for their religious indifference, and gave Yusef a fetwa—-or legal opinion—-to the effect that he had good moral and religious right to dethrone the heterodox rulers who did not scruple to seek help from the Christians whose bad habits they had adopted. By 1094 he had removed them all, and though he regained little from the Christians except Valencia, he reunited the Mahommedan power and gave a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... time endeavor to assert and vindicate this article of the resurrection from the pretended impossibility of it. And I hope, by God's assistance, to make the possibility of the thing so plain as to leave no considerable scruple about it in any free and unprejudiced mind. And this I shall do from these words of St. Paul, which are part of the defense which he made for himself before Festus and Agrippa, the substance whereof is this, that he had lived a blameless and inoffensive life among the Jews, in ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... you mean that many things as I see them now, strike me as very inferior to objects of the same description in Europe, I do not scruple to say they do. When I landed, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... of the others. The President leaned back; his gloved hands, resting on either knee, made large white spots. He looked eminent, but he looked relaxed, and the lady beside him ministered freely and without scruple, it was clear, to this effect of his comfortably unbending. Vogelstein caught her voice as he approached. He heard her say "Well now, remember; I consider it a promise." She was beautifully dressed, in rose-colour; ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... Ten more applications for autographs? Isn't it strange that people who'd blush to borrow twenty dollars don't scruple to ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... unprincipled, devoting himself earnestly and without the least scruple of conscience to two objects—the acquisition of money and the success of treason—he yet concealed the true character of his designs under an apparently ingenuous and fervent delivery, and in the garb of sentiments worthy a Milton or a Washington. His voice, deeply ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... fellows, those Trouveres. Not content with making the ignorance and the gross vices of the clerical orders the subjects of their fabliaux, they did not scruple to ridicule their superstitious teachings, as witness the satire on saint-worship, entitled "Du vilain [i.e., peasant] qui conquist Paradis par plait," the substance of which is as follows: A poor peasant dies suddenly, and his soul escapes ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... elder and younger, had their handkerchiefs to their eyes, at the just testimony which I bore to the merits of this exalted creature; and which I would make no scruple to bear at the bar of a court of justice, were I to be ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... "Softly; there is no haste; the Jew shall have nothing but the penalty: therefore prepare, Shylock, to cut off the flesh; but mind you shed no blood: nor do not cut off more nor less than just a pound; be it more or less by one poor scruple, nay if the scale turn but by the weight of a single hair, you are condemned by the laws of Venice to die, and all your wealth is forfeited to the senate." "Give me my money, and let me go," said Shylock. "I have it ready," said Bassanio: "here ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... Napoleon's incalculable vices, and this course was no doubt chosen in order to avert the public gaze from too close a scrutiny into their own perfidy. Their plan is not an unusual one under such circumstances; rascals never scruple to multiply offences more wicked than those already committed in order to prove that they are acting from a pure sense of public morality and historical truth. If the object of their attack be a benefactor, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... mother would be heart-broken at the idea of parting with her darlings. Until now, the thought of going to reside in the North had never been presented for his consideration. He was a Southerner in almost all his feelings, and had never had a scruple respecting the ownership of slaves. But now the fact that he was the master as well as the father of his children, and that whilst he resided where he did it was out of his power to manumit them; that in the event of his death they might be seized and sold by his heirs, whoever ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... WHOOPING COUGH.—Dissolve a 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 ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... in this than Sophocles, for in the one Ulysses bemoans his wounds too vehemently; for the very people who carried him after he was wounded, though his grief was moderate, yet, considering the dignity of the man, did not scruple to say, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... covered with a plaited piece of the same stuff, and the face that peeps out in the midst of it, looks as if it were pilloried. The widows wear over and above, a crape forehead cloth; and, in this solemn weed, go to all the public places of diversion without scruple. The next day I was to wait on the empress Amelia, who is now at her palace of retirement, half a mile from the town. I had there the pleasure of seeing a diversion wholly new to me, but which is the common amusement of this court. The empress ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... unpalatable truths the Atheist is bitterly detested. 'The Shepherd' is a most unorthodox kind of Pantheist; yet even he does not scruple to swell the senseless cry against 'Godless infidels,' whom he calls an almost infinite variety of bad names, and among other shocking crimes accuses them of propounding a 'dead philosophy.' Yet the difference between his Pantheism ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... And what did Isobel mean, during that last dreadful scene ere she was carried away to the boat, by screaming in her frenzy that Ventana had taken "an ample vengeance." Vengeance for what? Had the half-breed dared to make the same proposal to the rich and highly placed Isobel Baring that he did not scruple to put before the needy governess? Surely that was impossible. There were limits even to ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

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

... waged a war of merciless conquest at the bidding of insatiable ambition. You have posed as the peace-keeper of Europe until the train of war was laid, as you and your allies thought, in secret, and then you let loose the forces of havoc upon your fellow-men without ruth or scruple. Your path of victory has been traced in blood and flames from one end of Europe to the other; you have sacrificed the lives of millions, and the happiness of millions more, to a dream of world-wide empire, which, if realised, would ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... cities and islands: indeed, there was one whose services were so great that he had the presumption to accept of a kingdom. But why should I say more, when before me is the bright example of the great Amadis de Gaul, who made his squire knight of the Firm Island? Surely I may, therefore, without scruple of conscience, make an earl of Sancho Panza, who is one of the best squires that ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will not tell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but you will spew out one without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... were frequently occupied with the future of his younger son, a problem that had by no means been determined by signing the articles that bound him to Simpson & Rackham. The boy was frank and honest and did not scruple to give expression to ideas of his own, and it was these ideas that alarmed his father. Once at the house of Mr Simpson, and before the assembled guests, he told an archdeacon, worth 7000 pounds a year, that the classics ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... to turn 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 ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... 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 still exists about eight others. If they are ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... unless he himself felt it so. There would be no need to mention that, I should say. And, really, it would be so much better if those estrangements came to an end. John makes no scruple of speaking freely about everyone, and I don't think Alfred regards Mrs Edmund with any serious unkindness. If Mr Milvain would walk over with the young ladies to-morrow, it ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... or enhance her personal charms; but with so much prudence and mystery, that the secret cares of her toilette could never be traced—her successor trusted for the power of pleasing to youth and nature. Josephine mismanaged her revenue, and incurred debt without scruple. Maria Louisa lived within her income, or if she desired any indulgence beyond it, which was rarely the case, she asked it as a favour of Napoleon. Josephine, accustomed to political intrigue, loved to manage, to influence, and to guide her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... to be trusted. Was he one of the twelve apostles? Had he kept company with Christ? They represented themselves as having brought the true form of Christianity from Jerusalem, the sacred headquarters; and they did not scruple to profess that they had been sent from the apostles there. They distorted the very noblest parts of Paul's conduct to their purpose. For instance, his refusal to accept money for his services they imputed to a sense of his own lack of authority: the real apostles always received pay. In ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... principle by which men pretended to govern any of their actions. The last celebrated words of Socrates, a little before his death, do not seem to reckon or build much upon any such opinion; and Caesar made no scruple to disown it and ridicule ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift

... this country have an interest, a property, an inheritance, in this INSTRUMENT, against the value of which forty capitols do not weigh the twentieth part of one poor scruple. There can never be any necessity for such proceedings, but a feigned and false necessity; a mere idle and hollow pretence of necessity; least of all can it be said that any such necessity actually existed on the 3d of March. There was no enemy on our shores; there were no guns pointed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... consideration of the matter having been delayed for about a month, Mr Craig was again (January 15, 1717) before the Presbytery; was asked by them to sign the answers formerly given by him, and though he "seemed to scruple a little at something of the wording" of some of them, he finally did so, and was licensed. His signature still stands at that date in the Presbytery's copy of the Confession of Faith. The most famous statement signed by him was to the following effect:—"And ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... savages would not find much of an obstacle in such a bank as this, and would scarcely be as careful as ourselves of the safety of Johnny and Eiulo. In fact, I suppose they would hand or drop them down such a height, without scruple or ceremony. What I now begin to fear is, that our unfortunate companions have fallen into the hands of a party of savages, landing here for some transient purpose, and have been ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... like any other common occurrences of life, without the least reproach from the world, or themselves. For instance; any man will tell you he intends to be drunk this evening, or was so last night, with as little ceremony or scruple, as he would tell you the time of the day. He will let you know he is going to a whore, or that he has got a clap, with as much indifferency, as he would a piece of public news. He will swear, curse, or blaspheme, without the least passion or provocation. And, though all regard for reputation ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... visit,—that everybody concerned should be steeped to the hips in lies and iniquity. When, therefore, he found at Colonel Osborne's rooms that the Colonel had received a letter with the Lessboro' post-mark, addressed in the handwriting of a woman, he did not scruple to declare that Colonel Osborne had received, on that morning, a letter from Mr. Trevelyan's "lady." But in sending to her husband what she called with so much bitterness, "the correspondence," Mrs. Trevelyan had to enclose ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter into this league against me! My mother——Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, I know, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further your designs. Could you find none but my mother ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... says Parkinson, "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 diluted ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... clandestine business at Eschburg. The two agents were taken to Hamburg and their conduct inquired into. They were severely punished. They deserved this, however, less than those who had entrusted them with such an honourable mission; but leaders never make much scruple about abandoning their accomplices in the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... 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 ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... stories for fictions which carry in them anything very different from what we see in daily experience, yet as the materials I have for this unfortunate man's life happen both to be full and very exact, I shall not scruple mentioning some of his adventures, which I am persuaded will neither be unpleasant, nor incapable ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... Gordon saw himself as one whose foot was already across the threshold. True, he had thus far broken with the world of time-honored traditions only in part. But why should he scruple to be wholly free? If the man whose deed of brutality or passion was disturbing the chanceful equilibrium for two other human dust-grains should be identified, why should he not ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... shicer!" was the unanimous opinion, expressed without scruple. While from the back of the hall came the curt request to him to shut ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... witness the whipping out of coal cargoes. It may be seen even now in some ports of the United Kingdom, but the winch has largely taken the place of this athletic process. Most captains supplied rum or vodka liberally, with a view to expediting dispatch, and did not scruple to log and fine those seamen who acquired a craving for alcohol, and misconducted themselves in consequence when they got liberty to go ashore. Nobody was more severe on the men who committed a breach of discipline than those who, ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... order that the foregoing proposition may be fully explained, I will draw attention to a few additional points, and I will furthermore answer the objections which may be advanced against our doctrine. Lastly, in order to remove every scruple, I have thought it worth while to point out some of the advantages, which follow therefrom. I say "some," for they will be better appreciated from what we shall set forth in the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... three-fourths of those who do not scruple to lie in the courts, would be ashamed to lie before their neighbors, or ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... has descended to us, surmounted with an exuberant twig of bays, is vulgarly classed with the legitimate Laureates. Southey, pardonably anxious to magnify an office belittled by some of its occupants, does not scruple to rank Spenser, Daniel, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... in hoarded heaps, Can Gold, my SALLUST, one true joy bestow, Where sullen, dim, and valueless it sleeps, Whose worth, whose charms, from circulation flow? Ah! then it shines attractive on the thought, Rises, with such resistless influence fraught As puts to flight pale Fear, and Scruple cold, Till Life, e'en Life itself, becomes ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... swarm of girls, and I soon fixed my eyes on one whose appearance struck me. She had a fine figure, delicate features, a noble air, and a patient look which interested me in the highest degree. She was dancing with a man who did not scruple to abuse her in the coarsest manner when she made any mistakes, but she bore it without replying, though an expression of contempt mingled with the sweetness of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

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

... 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 in the fine arts, like fashion ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... town in Yorkshire. She had begun with a calculated falsehood, and had no scruple in backing ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... most is its ineptitude. To receive as so much ready money and coin of good alloy, all those "I swear" of the official commons; not even to think that every scruple has been overcome, and that there cannot be in them all one single word of pure metal! He is both a prince and a traitor! To set the example from the summit of the State, and to imagine that it will not be followed! To sow lead, and expect to reap gold! Not even to perceive that, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... expression was ugly. There was that in the look of him that might have daunted any woman, but Phyllis Astley-Rolfe had lived chiefly by her wits for a sufficient time to be quite impervious where another would have been silenced. She was as completely without fear as she was without scruple. Her objects were objects to be gained, by the most convenient and speedy means, and quite irrespective of considerations which might have withheld another from attempting to fulfill them. In furtherance ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... there were Kings among them from their first Settlement, but the Men thus dignified, were in Reality only Generals elected out of the Troops, and whose Prerogative was limited to Military Affairs. These Chiefs, whose Savageness was rather augmented by the Power with which they were invested, made no Scruple to dispatch a neighbouring Competitor with the Sword or Poison, and their History is full of unnatural Instances, of Brothers stabbing Brothers, Subjects poisoning their Sovereigns to ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... kindness to me, and the impression our former 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] ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... that, therefore, I chose not to sing before that lady —'Fie, said she, (drawing me on one side,) is not this pride, my Nancy? Does it not look as if your principal motive to oblige was to obtain applause? A generous mind will not scruple to give advantage to a person of merit, though not always to her own advantage. And yet she will have a high merit in doing that. Supposing this excellent person absent, who, my dear, if your example spread, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... the actress feel fear no more, and why did that virgin hand unbar the door to admit, without a scruple or, a doubt, at that late hour, the visit of the fairest cavalier of Naples? I know not; but Zicci had become her destiny, and she obeyed the voice of her preserver as if it ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Matthew, and other figures: it is a most known picture, and has been engraved by Augustin Caracei. If you can employ any body privately to inquire about these pictures, be so good as to let me know; Sir R. would not scruple almost any price, for he has of neither hand: the convent is poor: the Zambeccari collection is to be sold, though, when I inquired after this picture, they would not set ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... will be sold for many thousands of pounds by to-morrow, and all the puny watchings and dodgings that have been devised cannot prevent it. The money will go to aid me in the attainment of the power of which you may have a part, if you wish. The means of attaining this I scruple no more about than you did to-day about the story of the bookbindings." He bowed with a slight ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... a quarter of a Pint of Vinegar, and as much Verjuice; put these together in a new Stone-Jar that will admit of being stopp'd close: Put to this a quarter of a Pound of Salt that has been well dry'd over the Fire, an Ounce of Black-Pepper, a Drachm of Nutmeg beaten fine, and as much Cloves, a Scruple of Ginger, two or three little Bits of dry'd Orange-Peel, half an Ounce of Mustard-Seed bruised, half a dozen Shallots bruised a little, five or six Bay-Leaves, a little Sprig of Sweet Basil, or Sweet Marjoram, a Sprig of Thyme, and a little Cinnamon; then stop your Jar close, and ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... creating of Legislators, Mayors, Congressmen, and Governors. Whiskey is not more necessary to the reputation of our mob-politicians than are the physical powers of Milman Mingle to the success of the party he honors with his services. Nor do his friends scruple at consulting him on matters of great importance to the State while in ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... traders must be felt by the Manyuema to be a severe infliction, for the huts are appropriated, and no leave asked: firewood, pots, baskets, and food are used without scruple, and anything that pleases is taken away; usually the women flee into the forest, and return to find the whole place a litter of broken food. I tried to pay the owners of the huts in which I slept, but often in vain, for they hid in the forest, and feared to come near. It was common ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... and much drinking, and would neglect the best customer that ever was sick, when tempted by the fascination of a game of loo. He was certainly a bad family-man; for though he worked hard for the support of his wife and children, he was little among them, paid them no attention, and felt no scruple in assuring Mrs C. that he had been obliged to remain up all night with that dreadful Mrs Jones, whose children were always so tedious; or that Mr Blake was so bad after his accident that he could not leave him ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... than our fault, that we had not tasted anything since three o'clock in the morning, so that when one of our men knocked the neck off a bottle, and handed it to me, to take a drink, I nodded to the old fellow's health, and drank it off without the smallest scruple of conscience. It was excellent claret, and if he still lives to tell the story, I fear he will not give us the credit of having belonged to such a civil department as ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... apprehension, but even beyond that of an ordinary proficient in the learned languages. Yet, so far were these innovations from being considered as prejudicial, that one of the most admired writers of our days, Dr. Johnson, did not scruple to confess, that he formed his style upon the model of Sir Thomas Brown. The great number of excellent translations which were constantly appearing through all its progressive stages of improvement, must naturally have given the language a classical turn. It ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... that nothing else remained to be done, and that he could get his expedition under way without any scruple. There were many skaters on the river, but a clear passage down-stream had been made for the start of ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... his answer. "He can whip any boy in town of your size." Whereat the little fellows grew sober, and recognized the fact that some scruple of Jim's not understood by them had probably saved them ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... always been passive when the proposal was made, and the more she heard from Madame de Salmonnet, the more averse she was to it. The only consideration that seemed to her in its favour was the avoidance of implicating her foster-father, but a Sunday morning spent with him removed the scruple. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cause of rivalry and enmity subsists, Dino Vasari loves you with his whole soul. If you stood in your old position, even I could not persuade him to dispossess you; but you have voluntarily given it up. Your property has gone to your cousin, and Dino has now no scruple about claiming his rights. Now that Vincenza Vasari's evidence has been obtained, it is thought well that he should make the story public, and try to get his position acknowledged. Therefore he is starting for England, where he will arrive ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... savage, but at any rate they spin their own webs out of their own insides. I like very well to talk with gentlemen that play with my branch of entomology; I do not doubt it amused you, and if you want to see anything I can show you, I shall have no scruple in letting you see it. I have never had any ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... miracle is hereditary upon all his successors, but we find that not blood but royal prestige was the secret. He said "that this prince cured the king's evil is beyond dispute: and since the credit of this miracle is unquestionable, I see no reason why we should scruple believing the rest.... King Edward the Confessor was the first that cured this distemper, and from him it has descended as an hereditary miracle upon all his successors. To dispute the matter of fact, is to go to ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... Council decided to banish them again. In 1762 five transports loaded with prisoners were sent to Massachusetts, but that colony wanted no more Acadians and sent them back. Belcher had some difficulty in explaining his action to the home government. And the Lords of Trade did not scruple ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... the Canon answered; "but, now that we have seen it, I have no such scruple." He tore the print across, and across again. "Even in this," he said, with a glance at the Admiral, who winced, "we may perhaps read a lesson, or at least a warning, that man's presumption in ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence what my work would turn out. Sometimes I think it will be good, at other times I really feel as much ashamed of myself as the author of the "Vestiges" ought to be of himself. I know well that your kindness and friendship would make you do a great ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... England. The new Duke Philip and Queen Isabel did the same, the latter being no less eager than the former for the punishment of her own son. Within less than three months they made up their minds to waive every scruple as to the acceptance of Henry's most exorbitant demands. He was to have the princess Catharine in marriage, and, the Dauphin being disinherited, to succeed to the crown of France on her father's death. He was also to be regent during King Charles' life; and all who held honors or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... has dared 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 ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... case," thought Jasper, "I had better be off as soon as possible. I should be no match for this brute in human form. Judging from what I have heard of him, he would kill me without scruple if he thought I ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.

... chiefly low lying lands and water meads unfit for coverts, was not well disposed for preserving pheasants, and that in shooting he would more likely shoot Lord Trowbridge's birds than his own. But it was equally certain that Lord Trowbridge's pheasants made no scruple of feeding on his land. Nevertheless, he had thought it right to give up all idea of keeping up a head of game for his ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... understanding upon occasion, as bucks do their horns, when the season arrives to breed new against the next, to be cast again. He is very zealous to show himself, upon all occasions, a true member of the Church for the time being, that has not the least scruple in his conscience against the doctrine or discipline of it, as it stands at present, or shall do hereafter, unsight unseen; for he is resolved to be always for the truth, which he believes is never so plainly demonstrated ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... them that he had invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me down stairs. This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender, it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable impression. The ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... friends," said Martha, "if what I have heard is true,—that he has often helped a poor man with the money which he takes only from the rich. You know he still calls himself a Tory, and many of those whose estates have been confiscated, would not scruple to harbor him, or ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... active benevolence. But in all else how different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical costume, no ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A liturgy they have, to be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its expressions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... had with that divine, would have informed him of those things which we, from our inspiration, are enabled to open and discover. Of readers who, from such conceits as these, condemn the wisdom or penetration of Mr Allworthy, I shall not scruple to say, that they make a very bad and ungrateful use of that knowledge which we ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... that of the cruel vanity, for the gratification of which her aunt was about to sacrifice her; of the effrontery and cunning, with which, at the time that she meditated the sacrifice, she boasted of her tenderness, or insulted her victim; and of the venomous envy, which, as it did not scruple to attack her father's character, could scarcely be expected ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... purposed to lead them into the Holy Land against the infidels. He wanted money to forward the preparations requisite for this expedition, and he offered to mortgage all his dominions to William, without entertaining any scruple on account of that rapacious and iniquitous hand to which he resolved to consign them [x]. The king accepted the offer, and had prepared a fleet and an army, in order to escort the money, and take possession of the rich provinces of Guienne and Poictou; ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... over her spectacles with the joy of a child in the toy she was going to buy. It was probably the first, the very first time in her life, that she had had that particular experience. Added to the joy of getting the thing she coveted was the sense of having looked a conscientious scruple in the face, and seen it fly before her like an evil spirit before a spell. She had routed the enemy, pushed aside the obstacle in front of her, and, excited, and flushed with victory, was looking round on a bigger world ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... among other peoples, on the other, rendered any effective combination impossible, and made the relations of states to one another uncertain and inconstant. While each people paid respect to the spirit of autonomy, when their own autonomy was in question, they were ready to violate it without scruple when they saw their way to securing a predominant position among their neighbours; and although the ideal of Panhellenic unity had been put before Greece by Gorgias and Isocrates, its realization did not go further ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... beauty and enthusiasm, her golden virginity and unself-consciousness, her unaffected joy in being alive, her superb health and vitality had shattered his conceit and self-obsession, broken down his aloofness and lack of scruple and filled the empty frame that he had hung in his best thoughts ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... but things had come out after he had left Aden considerably to his discredit, and I had reason to fear that he was utterly unprincipled and reckless, and intimately connected with slavers—indeed, it was very probable that he would without scruple have taken a cargo of slaves on board if he had had the opportunity. Should he have attempted to obtain slaves on some parts of the coast, it was very likely that he would have been cut off, as the natives in many places are strongly opposed to the slave-trade, having discovered how ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... sudden motion did her eyes—Up she flew in a moment: Traitor! Judas! her eyes flashing lightning, and a perturbation in her eager countenance, so charming!—What have you taken up?—and then, what for both my ears I durst not have done to her, she made no scruple to seize the stolen letter, though ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... on board the same packet, was struck with my not paying for the music after dinner, and was much inclined to know my reason, believing my refusal was from a religious motive. At a suitable opportunity he asked me, and confessed he had felt a scruple of the same kind, and regretted he had not been faithful. This slight incident was the means of making me acquainted with an honest and religious man, as I afterwards ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... could form no satisfactory estimate. He knew him to be astute, wary, and the shrewdest of politicians. He knew, likewise, that he was acting in conjunction with powerful financial interests in both North America and Europe. He knew him to be a man who would stop at no scruple, hesitate at no dictate of conscience, yield to no moral or ethical code; one who would play Rome against Wall Street, with his own unfortunate country as the stake; one who would hurl the fairest ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... announced his readiness to begin our business. The friends of John Meavy were reluctant to have him leave St. Louis. They did not know what enterprise he was about to join in; but they heard that I had some share in it, and they did not scruple to hint that I might be an adventurer, who would 'diddle' him out of his money. However, John only smiled, and told me all they said, in his frank way, as if it were some good joke. So, finally, we took leave of St. Louis, and came to New York, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... had been convenient for me to make the acquaintance of the young woman and her family, I met one day on Kearney street a handsome but somewhat dissipated-looking man whom something prompted me to follow and watch, which I did without any scruple whatever. He turned up Geary street and followed it until he came to Union square. There he looked at his watch, then entered the square. He loitered about the paths for some time, evidently waiting for someone. Presently he was joined ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... was founded upon blood and the guillotine. She was no longer the nation that had aided the struggling Colonies. She was the nation that had foully murdered the kind king who had lent that aid two decades before. Besides these arguments, the Federalists did not scruple to hint, that, in a second war with England, the United States might lose the independence so recently won, while the navy of France was not so greatly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot



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



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