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Probity   /prˈoʊbəti/   Listen
Probity

noun
1.
Complete and confirmed integrity; having strong moral principles.  "He enjoys an exaggerated reputation for probity"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Probity" Quotes from Famous Books



... personal qualities and probity of his visitor, when he had withdrawn, but said that he was too closely incorporated with the juste milieu to be any longer classed among his political friends. I asked him if he had ever known a true liberal in politics, who had ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... as well, for I have great respect for the flicker. He is a whimsical old codger, very prone to talk to himself and go through strange gymnastics in a rather ridiculous way, but the flicker is honest. He brings up a large family in the strictest probity and I have never known a flicker to do a wrong thing. On the other hand, the blue jay is a thief, a mocker and a murderer. Just now he is living honestly on nuts and wild fruit, taking almost as many acorns as the squirrels and making a great deal ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... privata. Privateer marrabisto. Privation senigo. Privilege privilegio. Privily sekrete. Prize premio. Prize sxati. Probable kredinda—ebla. Probability kredebleco, kredindeco, igxebleco. Probation provtempo. Probationer novico. Probe sondi, esplori. Probity honesteco. Problem problemo. Proboscis rostro. Proceed procedi. Proceedings (law) proceso—ado. Proceeding procedo. Procession procesio. Process procedo, rimedo. Proclaim proklami. Procrastinate ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... public is indebted to a gentleman, now in Ireland, of the greatest probity and worth, with whom the Dean long lived in perfect intimacy. To this gentleman's hands the Dean entrusted a copy of his History, desiring him to peruse and give his judgment of it, with the last corrections ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... position is married nowadays. Bachelors are not fashionable any more. They are a damaged lot. Too much is known about them. You must get a wife, sir. Look where your friend Robert Chiltern has got to by probity, hard work, and a sensible marriage with a good woman. Why don't you imitate him, sir? Why don't you take him ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... the lawful heir? If Heaven has made it quite impossible Damis and you should live together here, Were it not better you should quietly And honourably withdraw, than let the son Be driven out for your sake, dead against All reason? 'Twould be giving, sir, believe me, Such an example of your probity ... ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

... of your ministry. In every selection, party and party feeling should be avoided. Now is the time to exterminate that monster, called party spirit. By selecting characters most conspicuous for their probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without any regard to party, you will go far, if not entirely, to eradicate those feelings, which on former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government, and, perhaps, have the pleasure and honor of uniting a people heretofore politically divided. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... axing me to take vine, that I would vager a stiff glass of viskey, vich you vill ax me to take by and by, that you vouldn't know me on the first occasion of my visit. 'Steel Spring,' said the governor, 'it can't be did;' and ven I pledged my vord as a gentleman and a man of probity, that I vould vrite to him the result, in a strict sense, he shook my 'and, and said I was a honor to the land wot give me birth, and that he 'oped he should never be called upon to part vid me. Ven ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... rather absurd, for if he did not really wish for an alliance between Prussia and France, he at least wished that people should dread such an alliance. A man cannot frighten his friends by the fear he will rob them, and at the same time enjoy the reputation for strict probity. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... cunning executive could neither cajole nor intimidate. Unmindful of the anger of Governors, the rebukes of Kings, of personal loss, even of imprisonment, they had upheld the people's rights. And their descendants were to reap the reward of their faithfulness. The traditions of ability, probity and heroism established by the men of the Critical Period made possible that long and honorable career of the House of Burgesses and the important role it was to play in ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... habit, and a constant exchange of services rendered. Whatever M. Favoral might have done, they only saw in him now the friend, the host whose bread they had broken together more than a hundred times, the man whose probity, up to this fatal night, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... judicious speech, worthy of a frank, uncompromising disposition, controlled by a firm and consistent judgment. The Baron Louis's financial scheme was founded on a double basis,—constitutional order in the State, and probity in the Government. With these two conditions, he reckoned confidently on public prosperity and credit, without being dismayed by debts to be paid, or expenses incurred. His assertions as to the closing state of the finances under the Empire, drew from the Count Mollien, the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... it. I buy, dispense, and disperse human labor. I create wants, and I satisfy them. I will establish honest laws of trade. What I do shall be rated as commercial law. What I say shall be quoted as a way of equity and probity. That man is a King of Trade. His throne is set upon hills and seas. His subjects are all men with needs, and all men with products of the land, the coasts, the sea, or brain, or skill. This is the lawful King of Trade. He represents God's mart of exchange. Primarily, goods are not ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... him." He advised me to say no more about my claims, but to communicate to him the means I had spoken of for increasing the revenues of the state. I laid too great store by the advice of the man who had made my fortune not to follow it. I went to the comptroller, and trusting in his probity I explained my scheme to him. This was to pass a law by which every estate, except that left by father to son, should furnish the treasury with one year's income; every deed of gift formally drawn up being subject ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... accelerated by illegal extortion, and the governor's harvest was reaped before it was due. Illegality was, however, checked to some extent by the generally wise and just influence of the chief justice, or kadi, whose probity often formed the best feature of the Arab ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... castle of Taillebourg was afterwards established a Protestant chapel, and there were buried, after the fatal battle des Arenes, at Saintes, the four brothers Coligny, of whom d'Aubigne says, "They were similar in countenance, but still more in probity, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... in that happy combination of courage, energy, judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a more distinctive word—but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more than the most brilliant faculties—and it accomplishes more. We have only ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... Provincial authorities, who represented that he was of a haughty disposition, that he had taken upon himself to introduce innovations in the rites and ceremonies, that overtly, while he endeavoured to enjoy the reputation of probity and uprightness, he, secretly, combined the nature of the tiger and wolf; with the consequence that he had been the cause of much trouble in the district, and that he had made life intolerable for the people, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... thought, in your union with a man of probity and good sense. You may be sure I thought of you often, but only with pleasure. Certain indications I early saw in you of a sensibility that required strict government; an inattention to any thing but feeling; a proneness ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... a man full of honour, courage, and probity, and exceedingly regular in the performance of his duties. Bonaparte's attachment to him arose more from habit than liking. Berthier did not concede with affability, and refused with harshness. His abrupt, egotistic, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... confinement and hard labor. As for oaths, the Hymn to Hermes shows that in succeeding generations their solemnity was openly ridiculed. Among the Homeric gods, as well as among the heroes, there were, indeed, old-fashioned characters who adhered to probity. The character of Apollo is unstained by deceit. So is that ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... situate on the coast of Provence, a city ancient and most famous, and in old time the seat of many more rich men and great merchants than are to be seen there to-day, among whom was one Narnald Cluada by name, a man of the lowest origin, but a merchant of unsullied probity and integrity, and boundless wealth in lands and goods and money, who had by his lady several children, three of them being daughters, older, each of them, than the other children, who were sons. Two of the daughters, who were twins, were, when my story begins, fifteen years old, and the third was ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... justificatives; I have been a gold-digger in California, a speculator in New York, of late in callings obscure and humble. But in all my adventures, under whatever name, I have earned testimonials of probity, could manifestations of so vulgar a virtue be held of account by the enlightened people of Paris. I come now to a close. The Vicomte de Mauleon is about to re-appear in Paris, and the first to whom he announces that sublime avatar is Paul Louvier. When settled in some modest apartment, I ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... heaved, swelled, and foamed, very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling, and become at once, if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic, or casually associate. Thus, the Puritan elders, in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... he refused to surrender. The public uneasiness resulting from these sensational reports was in large degree allayed, when it was announced that the President had signified his desire that a grave and considerate man with long-established reputation for ability and probity should serve as Secretary of War. The surprise in the whole matter was that the President should have selected Mr. Ewing, who, as was known to a few friends, had earnestly advised Mr. Johnson against ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... to reside near the French republic, in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. He is instructed to bear to you our sincere solicitude for your welfare, and to cultivate with teal the cordiality so happily subsisting between us. From a knowledge of his fidelity, probity, and good conduct, I have entire confidence that he will render himself acceptable to you, and give effect to your desire of preserving and advancing, on all occasions, the interest and connection of the two nations. I beseech you, therefore, to give ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... those armies could exist for five years. The facts placed beyond denial by the capture of foreign officers' baggage, by the violated parole of honour, and by many other incidents of the late war, combine to prove the low tone of gentlemanly honour and probity in the ill-paid armies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... chancellor, a man of probity and integrity, still lifted his voice against the paper system of Law, and his project of colonization, and was eloquent and prophetic in picturing the evils they were calculated to produce; the private distress and public degradation; the corruption ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... and fully carried out, will tend to elevate the Jews from their present degraded and certainly unmerited position; and while it would improve them, it would enable the Christian world to do that justice to their talents and probity, for which at present, in an ignorance of their true characteristics, little credit is given to them; not because Englishmen are now indisposed to act fairly or kindly to their countrymen of a different religion, or from their indifference to the wants of our ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... it was that led to sensation No. 4—a wordy battle of the first magnitude between the next-door neighbor of the saddler sergeant and no less a champion of maiden probity than Norah Shaughnessy—the saddler sergeant's buxom daughter. All the hours since early morning Norah had been in a state of nerves so uncontrollable that Mrs. Truman—who knew of Norah's fondness for Mullins and marveled not that Mullins always preferred the ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... popularity, perhaps none at all. If we consider them in reference to their parties, the one was manifestly the leader; the other, at the worst, is but misled. The designs of the one tended openly to usurpation; those of the other may yet be interpreted more fairly; and I hope, from the natural candour and probity of his temper, that it will come to a perfect submission and reconcilement at last. But that which perfectly destroys this pretended Parallel is, that our picture of the Duke of Guise is exactly according ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... a very handsome Person and Shape, tall and comely; his Eyes were blewish, his Nose long, and his Countenance venerable: He joined a most exemplary Piety and Probity to an eminent Degree of Knowledge and Learning. No Day pass'd over his Head, wherein he employ'd not several Hours in the Exercise of Prayer, and reading of the Scriptures. He wou'd never permit his Picture to be drawn, tho' much intreated by his Friends; however (when he was at his last ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... difference of their moral qualities, to espouse one party from a sense of justice, to oppose another even with indignation when excited by iniquity, are the common indications of probity, and the operations of an animated, upright, and generous spirit. To guard against unjust partialities, and ill grounded antipathies; to maintain that composure of mind, which, without impairing its sensibility or ardour, proceeds in every instance with discernment and penetration, are the marks ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... to irremediable wretchedness, without the most distant ray of hope respecting the future. And were it severed from Britain in any other way, the reverse felt in India would be unspeakably great. At present all the learning, the intelligence, the probity, the philanthropy, the weight of character existing in Britain, are brought to bear on India. There is scarcely an individual sustaining a part in the administration of affairs who does not feel the weight of that tribunal formed by the suffrages of the wise and the good in Britain, though he ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... his majesty was anxious to devise proper means to relieve the Indians from oppression; and for this purpose he assembled a council of all those persons to whom the administration of affairs in the Indies was confided, with several other persons of probity learned in the laws. By this assembly the whole affair was deliberately examined, and a code of regulations drawn up by which it was expected to remedy the abuses complained of. By these regulations it was enacted that no Indian should be forced to labour in the mines, or ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... Mr Serle passed the evening with us at our lodgings; and appeared to be intelligent, and even entertaining; but his disposition was rather of a melancholy hue. My uncle says he is a man of uncommon parts, and unquestioned probity: that his fortune, which was originally small, has been greatly hurt by a romantic spirit of generosity, which he has often displayed, even at the expence of his discretion, in favour of worthless individuals — That he had rescued Paunceford from ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... the instance of his rival, Themistocles; recalled three years after the invasion of Xerxes, was reconciled to Themistocles, fought bravely at Salamis, and distinguished himself at Plataea; managed the finances of the State with such probity that he died poor, was buried at the public charges, and left the State to provide ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... discredited. But, to the despair of reformers, in 1874 Tammany returned to power, electing its candidate for mayor by over 9000 majority. The new boss who maneuvered this rapid resurrection was John Kelly, a stone-mason, known among his Irish followers as "Honest John." Besides the political probity which the occasion demanded, he possessed a capacity for knowing men and sensing public opinion. This enabled him to lift the prostrate organization. He persuaded such men as Samuel J. Tilden, the distinguished lawyer, August Belmont, a leading financier, Horatio Seymour, who had been governor, ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... attended by two servants. Being arrived at the port, and enquiring for Ferdinand Alvarez, he lighted accidentally on George Alvarez, who was just ready to weigh anchor. This George was a wealthy merchant, a man of probity, and who had an extreme affection for the Father. He received the letters of Alvarez as if they had been addressed to himself, took the three Japonians into his ship, entertained them with all kindness, and brought them to Malacca; taking great satisfaction in the good office he should do in presenting ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... reduction, the final adjustment and execution of which were intrusted to Fernando de Talavera, the queen's confessor, a man of austere probity, the gross amount of thirty millions of maravedies, a sum equal to three-fourths of the whole revenue on Isabella's accession, was annually saved to the crown. The retrenchment was conducted with such strict impartiality, that the most confidential ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... bade me conduct him to my father's lodgings, which I gladly did. My father, as it happened, had met Captain Downing, and knew him to be a man of probity. Thanking the Captain for his offer, he without hesitation gave me leave to accompany him as cabin-boy. It did not take long to get an outfit, and bidding my old father and my kind mother and brothers and sisters farewell, I went on board the Rainbow. We dropped down the Thames the ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... after, he was brought to own, that all the inhabitants of Poo-nam-moo (i.e. the southern island) and those of T'Souduckey ate the enemies whom they took in battle, which Hoo-Doo corroborated, for his father was killed and eaten by the T'Souduckey people. 'Notwithstanding the general probity of our visitors, particularly Too-gee, (says Captain King,) I am inclined to think that horrible banquet is ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... my first voyage, to spend the rest of my days at Bagdad, but it was not long ere I grew weary of an indolent life, and I put to sea a second time, with merchants of known probity. We embarked on board a good ship, and, after recommending ourselves to God, set sail. We traded from island to island, and exchanged commodities with great profit. One day we landed on an island covered with several sorts of fruit trees, but we could see neither man nor animal. We walked in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... but he was very proud, indeed, to be associated with a gentleman so magnificently respected as Mr. Bommaney. There were not so very many people, he told himself, even in the City of London, which was full of wealth and probity, into whose hands so large a sum would be placed with so little a sense of the necessity of precaution. He felt as if he himself had been treated in this majestic manner, and the feeling warmed his heart. He bowed Mr. Brown ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... days, or were genius and faith then simply as frequent as capital and enterprise are among ourselves? The great distinction of the Sala del Cambio is that it has a friendly Yes for both these questions. There was a rigid transactional probity, it seems to say; there was also a high tide of inspiration. About the artist himself many things come up for us—more than I can attempt in their order; for he was not, I think, to an attentive observer, the mere smooth and entire and devout spirit ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... works up in a few months from the bottom of the factory to the top, the standards of success are practically the same in all instances: sleepless industry, restless scheming, resistless will, coupled with a changeless probity in the domestic excellences. Nothing is more curious about the American business man of fiction than the sentimentality he displays in all matters of the heart. He may hold as robustly as he likes to the doctrine ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... condemned them, I am not able to foretel. There are, indeed, some reasons for suspecting, that they blame not, because they disapprove, but because they think it necessary either to the character of discernment, or of probity, to censure the ministry, whatever maxims are pursued. Of this disposition it is no slight proof, that contrary measures have been sometimes condemned by the same men with the same vehemence; and that even compliance with their demands has not stilled ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... his own interest in the discourses, his belief that such sermons would not be superfluous in Germany, and his opinion that they were written for an increasing class of readers, "who, though possessed of taste and culture and laying claim to probity, yet for various reasons stand apart from moral instruction and religious observance." He also changed the original order of the sermons. The first part of this Swiss translation is reviewed in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... firmness of the States General that at the time they determined to require Macward and his two friends to leave the Seven Provinces, they voluntarily furnished them with a certificate bearing that each of them had lived among them "highly esteemed for his probity, submission to the laws, and integrity of manners" (Dr. M'Crie's Mem. of Veitch and Brysson, p. 368). He was afterwards permitted to return to Rotterdam, where he had been officiating as minister of the Scottish Church at the time he was ordered to remove out ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... were necessary to save the lion from the toils spread for him by Italian intriguers. He had already shown that he knew how to push his own interests, by changing sides and taking service with the highest bidder, as occasion prompted. Nor, though his character for probity and loyalty stood exceptionally high among the men of his profession, was he the slave to any questionable claims of honor or of duty. In that age of confused politics and extinguished patriotism, there was not indeed much scope for scrupulous honesty. But Filippo Maria Visconti proved more than ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... could have full scope. He filled that office with eminent ability, to the complete satisfaction of King Ferdinand, and when he died, on February 22, 1512, he left behind a name untarnished, a reputation for probity unsullied. Despite the honors accorded him by the kings of Spain and Portugal, however, and the high positions he occupied, he left no fortune for his heirs. His valuable papers were bequeathed to his ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... genius in its climateric, do not fail to give me a hint. There is no trusting to one's self in such a case: pride and conceit were the original sin of man. The probe of criticism must be entrusted to an impartial stander-by, of fine talents and unshaken probity. Both those requisites center in you: you are my choice, and I give myself up ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... the accused was a popular actor; and the accused had been caught red-handed, as it were, by the most popular soldier of the patriotic season. In those extraordinary circumstances the Press was paralysed into probity and accuracy; and the rest of this somewhat singular business can practically be recorded from reports ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... this with an Eye to those cruel Treatments which Men of all Sides are apt to give the Characters of those who do not agree with them. How many Persons of undoubted Probity, and exemplary Virtue, on either Side, are blackned and defamed? How many Men of Honour exposed to publick Obloquy and Reproach? Those therefore who are either the Instruments or Abettors in such Infernal Dealings, ought to be looked upon as Persons who make use of Religion to promote their ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... misfortune to lose great part of his library by shipwreck. He was thrown into prison for debt, where he wrote a great part of his medical treatises. Bishop Tanner says he was a man of acute judgment, and true piety. He was universally esteemed as a polished scholar, and as a man of probity, benevolence, and piety. I gather the following from Dr. Pulteney:—"Of Dr. Bulleyn there is a profile with a long beard, before his "Government of Health," and a whole length of him, in wood, prefixed to the "Bulwarke of Defence;" which book is a collection of most of his works. ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... to Aurelius Victor, was a prince of sweet temper, and loved men of probity and letters, had a very great passion for wine, and frequently got drunk. Having once given orders when he was in this condition, which he repented of when sober, he solemnly forbad any one to obey ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus

... highly respectable agents for Berwick & Co. of Edinburgh, the celebrated brewers of Scotch ale. His position being one of considerable responsibility, he was obliged to find security in the sum of L500, which he obtained from the relative who had always stood his friend. But such was his probity and general good conduct, that his employers cancelled the security, and returned the bond as a mark of their appreciation of his integrity ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... any event, to gain the substantial confidence of the people you must spend several years of right living among them. And you have no time to waste in building up confidence at your period of life. That is an asset which your whole career of unsuccessful probity should have accumulated for you; and it is dissipated if you remove from among those in whose minds ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... sexes, all ages, parties, and ranks in society; for he was not remarkably good tempered, nor particularly lively and agreeable; and an inflexible politician on the unpopular side. The causes are, his high character for probity, honour, and talents; his fine countenance; the benevolent interest he took in the concerns of all his friends; his simple and gentlemanlike manners; his untimely death.' 'Grave, studious, honourable, kind, everything Horner did,' says Lord ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... such thorough confidence in his father's probity, that his suspicions were not aroused even by this vehement language. He only imagined that the very suggestion of a dishonorable action associated with his son's name affected ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... opposition. It is certainly not altogether mere impertinence to ask of a public man how he gets what he lives upon, for independence of spirit, which is so hard to the man who lays his head on the debtor's pillow, is the prime virtue in such men. Probity in money is assuredly one of the keys to character, though we must be very careful in ascertaining and proportioning all the circumstances. Now, in 1769, Burke bought an estate at Beaconsfield, in the county of Buckingham. It was about 600 acres in extent, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... years my industry and probity were fully recompensed, my wealth was really great, and my reputation for wealth still greater. I had large warehouses crowded with goods, and considerable sums in the publick funds; I was caressed upon the Exchange by the most eminent merchants; became ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... inferiority of the African States to the trading Republics of the Mediterranean was a potent factor in bringing about this satisfactory arrangement; but it is only right to admit the remarkable fairness, moderation, and probity of the African princes in the settlement and maintenance of these treaties. As a general rule, Sicily and the commercial Republics were allied to the rulers of Tunis and Tilims[a]n and Fez by bonds of amity and mutual advantage. One after the other, Pisa, Genoa, Provence, Aragon, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... irregularities and stupidity never made the least improvement while they were there. I have at least[11] forty of the latter sort now in my eye; several of them in this town, whose learning, manners, temperance, probity, good-nature, and politics, are all of a piece. Others of them in the country, oppressing their tenants, tyrannizing over the neighbourhood, cheating the vicar, talking nonsense, and getting drunk at the sessions. It is from such seminaries as these, that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... as liberal in his conception of their scope and possibility, he insisted that they could only be brought about by an aristocracy of intellect and virtue.[11] But then the great controversy turns on the best means of securing sense and probity in a government. The democrat holds that under representative institutions the best security for the interests of the mass of the community is, that the mass shall have a voice in their own affairs, and that in proportion as that security is narrowed and weakened, the interests of the mass ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley

... fluently and accurately, has, I understood, sold to English merchants whose probity was beyond dispute the proceeds of some of his "firm's" operations. This game went on for a time, the Parisian lady with the false hair being one of the confederates. He disappeared, however, and I am glad to think that for ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... would caution emigrants not to be deceived by the Texan accounts of the place. Immense profits have been made, to be sure; but now even the Mexican smugglers and banditti are beginning to be disgusted with the universal want of faith and probity. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... to prevent their being very unhappy. And nothing surely can contribute more powerfully to soothe the minds of persons in such unfortunate and hopeless circumstances, than to find themselves under the care and protection of persons of gentle manners;—humane dispositions;—and known probity and integrity; such as even THEY,—with all their suspicions about them, may venture to ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... to make his department as expensive as possible. To this Mr. Hastings answers, that "he is convinced by experience it will be better performed"; and yet he immediately after subjoins, "This defect can only be corrected by the probity of the person intrusted with so important a charge; and I am willing to have it understood, as a proof of the confidence I repose in Mr. Fowke, that I have proposed his appointment, in opposition to a general principle, to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... intercept the invader. Behind us and as a reserve legion will come down from the highlands like a raging storm, if it is necessary, the jibaros, our fields' brothers, the most accomplished exemplar of abstinence, probity and bravery; the same that formed the urban militia; the same that were sent to Santo Domingo to defend gentile honor; they, who in number of more than 16,000, covered the plains of the north shore of the island, and compelled the Englishmen in 1797 to re-embark hastily, ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... were taking place, Praetextatus was administering the prefecture of the city in a noble manner, exhibiting numerous instances of integrity and probity, virtues for which he had been eminent from his earliest youth; and thus he obtained what rarely happens to any one, that while he was feared, he did not at the same time lose the affection of his fellow-citizens, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... stood, And to our eyes familiar was the god. Oft with some favour'd traveller they stray, And shine before him all the desert way; With social intercourse, and face to face, The friends and guardians of our pious race. So near approach we their celestial kind, By justice, truth, and probity of mind; As our dire neighbours of Cyclopean birth Match in fierce wrong the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... the daughter of a Mr. Fay who, as Lady Kingsbury says, is a Quaker, and is a clerk in a house in the City. As he is in all respects a good man, standing high for probity and honour among those who know him, I cannot think that there is any drawback. She, I think, has all the qualities which I would wish to find in the woman whom I might hope to make my wife. They live at No. 17, Paradise Row, Holloway. Lady Kingsbury, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... to choose from among their wisest and most virtuous men, him in whom they had observed the tenderest and most fatherly disposition. Neither ambition nor cabal had the least share in this choice; probity alone, and the reputation of virtue and equity, decided on these occasions, and gave the preference to the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... of the promises and protestations of gentlemen, members of the commune, who declare aloud that probity ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... despite of all his designs, and that I had given him more trouble than any woman in all Europe. For which reason I kept myself as closely concealed as possible, till the heat of these rumours had abated. In the meanwhile, I took the opinion of a very famous lawyer, who was a man of the strictest probity: he advised me to go off as soon as they had ceased searching for me. I followed his advice, and, in about a fortnight after, I escaped without ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... solemnity; even partaking of the sacrament with a consummate devoutness that is very edifying to all who are not in the secret, and who do not know that they are acting a part, and making a mock both of their own reason and their own probity, merely to please persons whose delusions they pity and despise from the bottom ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... ancient chiefs of Leix, who had grown up at the Spanish Court as the friend and companion of the O'Neils. O'Moore was then in the prime of life, of handsome person, and most seductive manners; his knowledge of character was profound; his zeal for the Catholic cause, intense; his personal probity, honour, and courage, undoubted. The precise date of O'Moore's arrival in Ireland is not given in any of the cotemporary accounts, but he seems to have been resident in the country some time previous to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... the weeding of the Governor's party is very entertaining. If you do not understand the consular exceptions, I do; and it is right that a man of honour, and a woman of probity, should find it so, particularly in a place where there are not 'ten righteous.' As to nobility—in England none are strictly noble but peers, not even peers' sons, though titled by courtesy; nor knights of the garter, unless of the peerage, so that Castlereagh himself would hardly pass through ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... impossible to her, for his father had been a man of exceptional probity and, without self-flattery, she knew that she herself was the most transparently honest person on earth. As the boy grew older his opportunities for showing this fatal deficiency increased. Whatever ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... I have in mind may have all the public and private virtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soul of the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan, and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for gallantry, has borne ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... sense of duty, like Cato, but his motives, personal and selfish as they in some sense were, coincided with what a more enlightened conscience would have felt to be duty. Thus his proconsulate is perhaps the purest and most honorable passage in his life. His strict and rare probity amidst the temptations of office arrests our attention and extorts our praise: yet assuredly Cicero had no nice sense of honor, and was controlled by no delicacy of sentiment, where public opinion was silent, or a transaction strictly private. His ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... one more point, it is not in his enemies or his calumniators that his danger lies. The real, absolute evil is in the system of routine and ill-will which attack the statesmen of probity. It will be seen from these pages that there is a warning bell destined, alas! to keep away from those in power the messengers who would bring them the truth from outside, the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... business to prey upon foolish young men, who took everything that was sent to them for gospel. There are many young men (and old men, too) who do not know us, and for their benefit we have drawn up here and submitted such proofs of our probity, fair dealing and medical capacity, as well as of the reliability of the Civiale Remedies, as will, we believe, carry conviction of our truthfulness and probity ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... capital of his native State, he lost no time in calling on the bookmen of that city, and among them, fortunately, on Mr. Joel Munsell, of 82 State street. This gentleman, well known for his learning and probity throughout the State, and far beyond its limits, combined the profession of an author with the more lucrative one of publisher and bookseller, and was pre-eminently in good standing as a worthy citizen ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... Highness, Archduchess of Austria, Princess of Hungary and Tuscany, Crown Princess of Saxony, etc., etc., smash these paper records of infallible royal rectitude, and superhuman, almost inhuman, royal probity! ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... than that of COURTIER: yet even among these, one shall see the force of example, as I have heard you, Sir, frequently observe: for, let but the land be blest with a pious and religious prince, who makes it a rule with him to countenance and promote men of virtue and probity; and to put the case still stronger, let such a one even succeed to the most libertine reign, wherein the manners of the people are wholly depraved: yet a wonderful change will be immediately effected. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... Visit of his to the Emperor was like that of Solon to Croesus [Solon not I recognizable, in the grenadier costume, amid the tobacco-smoke, and dim accompaniments?]—and he returned to Berlin, rich still in his own virtue. The most punctilious censors could find no fault in his conduct, except a probity carried to excess. The Interview ended as those of Kings often do: it cooled [not for some time yet], or, to say better, it extinguished the friendship there had been between the two Courts. Friedrich Wilhelm left Prag full of contempt [dimly, altogether unconsciously, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... leave all he possessed to my child.' 'Dare you assume, then, madame, that I am capable of denying a trust reposed in me?' asked the notary, with an indignation so apparently honorable and sincere, that I replied, 'No, sir; without doubt your reputation for probity is well known; but, notwithstanding, I cannot accuse my brother of so cruel an abuse of confidence.' 'Upon what deeds do you found this demand on me?' asked M. Ferrand. 'None, sir; eighteen months ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... Ellis kept a retail dry-goods store, in a small way. His capital was limited, and his annual profits, therefore, but light. The consequence was, that, in all his domestic arrangements, the utmost frugality had to be observed. He was a man of strict probity, with some ambition to get ahead in the world. These made him careful and economical in his expenditures, both at home and in the management of his business. As a man, he was social in his feelings, but inclined to be domestic. While unmarried, ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur

... men. I saw Sindbad perish with my own eyes, and the passengers on board saw it as well as I, and yet you tell me that you are that Sindbad? What impudence is this? To look on you, one would take you to be a man of probity; and yet you tell a horrible falsehood, in order to possess yourself of what does not belong to you. Have patience, captain, replied I; do me the favour to hear what I have to say. Very well, says he, speak; I am ready to hear you. Then I told him how ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... much more dreaded by the settlers than the bear, which did not so frequently attack the flocks. Bears were plentiful enough. The history of Roxbury states that in 1725, in one week in September, twenty bears were killed within two miles of Boston. This bear story requires unlimited faith in Puritan probity, and confidence in Puritan records to credit it, but believe it, ye who can, as I do! In Salem and in Ipswich, in 1640, any man who brought a living wolf to the meeting-house was paid fifteen shillings by the town; if the wolf were ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... truly in the sight of God and of my own conscience—my advice to you is to be quit of such men and such scenes, but I dare not keep back from you the truth that this one story, so far from lessening my confidence in your husband's probity or in Smith's, has rather increased it; for, being very ignorant men, they could not have heard of these stories that I have told you, for I have read them only in rare books; that they have reproduced the same incident ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... king, surrounded by majesty.' 'I am the valiant commander who struck terror every where,' 'I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics.' 'I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'" This is indeed affectation, and a very vulgar notion of greatness. We are reminded of Partridge, and his admiration of the overacting king. All the characters in thus seeming to say, would be little indeed. Not so Raffaelle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... they would They cannot: thee of kingdom and of life 'Tis easy to despoil, thyself the traitor, Thyself the violator of allegiance. Oh would all-righteous Heaven they could restore The joy of innocence, the calm of age, The probity of manhood, pride of arms, And confidence of honour! the august And holy laws trampled beneath thy feet. And Spain! O parent, I have lost thee too! Yes, thou wilt curse me in thy latter days, Me, thine avenger. I have fought her foe, Roderigo, I have ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... everyone to have the same standards of probity, so philosophically I pocketed my loss and gains together. Life is full of ups and downs and take the bad with the good. Gootes was in high spirits after his piece of chicanery and as we went down the street he practiced, quite unsuccessfully, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... our nature. These degraded beings are banished from the more respectable portions of the community; but here, as in our own highly civilised and favoured land, vice hovers by the side of virtue, and the Hindoo village contains the same elements of happiness and misery, profligacy and probity, purity and degradation, as the fine home cities that are a name ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... only secured the good he aimed at, but by his tact escaped the odium which so frequently attaches to the crusader against time-honoured abuses. As he accepted none of the emoluments belonging to his offices, he was the more free to insist on the perfect probity with which the administration of the funds of ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... China, and that copy only contained four of the groups and omitted the fifth altogether, which was directly a breach of the agreement contained in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, he did something which I can no more explain than you can. Outside of the question of probity involved, his action was unbelievably foolish" (The Far ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... man of probity and earnestness, but perhaps of insufficient ability to deal with such grave matters as now fell almost entirely upon his shoulders, soon afterwards obtained audience of the King. Being most sincerely in favour of the annexation of the Netherlands to France, and feeling that now ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... honorable profession,—in which, to succeed, a man must not only have high talents, but undoubted probity,—and, gentlemen, Monsieur Peytel DID succeed—DID inspire respect and confidence, as you, his neighbors, well know;—in the exercise, I say, of his high calling, Monsieur Peytel, towards the end of October last, had occasion to make a journey in the neighborhood, and visit some ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... benefit, or who has ever been the means of bringing a single bushel of grain into the public granary. One or two others had been so employed for a short time, but were removed, as wanting either industry or probity; and if the person who has at present the entire management of all the convicts, who are employed in clearing and cultivating the land, should be lost, there would be no one in the ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... pretend to judge of the measures of those who have been proscribed, but I will never believe in the evil intentions of men of whose probity and patriotism I am thoroughly convinced. If they erred, it was unintentionally. They fall without being abased, and I regard them as being unfortunate without being liable to blame. I am perfectly easy as to their glory, and willingly consent to participate in the honor of being ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... Honour, is, that he takes no Affront without resenting it, and dares fight Any body without Exception; and such there are that have not common Honesty, and are noted Sharpers. Besides, by Education and conversing constantly with Men of Honour, and some of real Honour and Probity, Persons may contract a strong Aversion to every Thing that is dishonourable. The most effectual method to breed Men of Honour, is to inspire them with lofty and romantick Sentiments concerning the Excellency of their Nature, and the superlative Merit there ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville

... (see TABLE, MATHEMATICAL). Briggs died on the 26th of January 1630, and was buried in Merton College chapel, Oxford. Dr Smith, in his Lives of the Gresham Professors, characterizes him as a man of great probity, a contemner of riches, and contented with his own station, preferring a studious retirement to all the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... of the hand towards the window he sought to hide the embarrassment, the slight flush which came to him each time that he thus excused his son; unwilling as he was to tell the true reason, the scruple of probity which had made him obstinately cling to his bare ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... investigating. A reader will not be judicious who imagines that what a man says of his own praises must be false, or that all which can be drawn from his own words in his own dispraise must be true. If a man praise himself for honor, probity, industry, and patriotism, he will at any rate show that these virtues are dear to him, unless the course of his life has proved him to be altogether a hypocrite in such utterances. It has not been presumed that Cicero was a hypocrite in these utterances. He was honest ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... regiment was fathered by Colonel Burnham, a staunch old yeoman and soldier, who has since been made a General. His probity and good-nature were adjuncts of his valor, and his men were of the better class of New Englanders. The fourth regiment fell into the hands of a lawyer from Lewistown, Pennsylvania. He had been also in the Mexican war, and was remarkable mainly for strictness ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... had to judge of the sentiments of Bailly, after this defeat, by those of his adherents. Their anger found vent in terms of unpardonable asperity. They said that D'Alembert had "basely betrayed friendship, honour, and the first principles of probity." ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... parish wherein Mr Selvyn dwelt was a gentleman of great learning and strict probity. He had every virtue in the most amiable degree, and a gentleness and humility of mind which is the most agreeable characteristic of his profession. He had a strong sense of the duties of his function and dedicated his whole time to the performance of them. He did not think his instructions ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... watery and colorless. My friend R. [Footnote: Mr. R— -, born at Seyssel, in the district of Belley, in 1757, an elector of the grand college. He may be considered an example of the good effects of prudence and probity.] looked disapprovingly of it, M.H.R. turned his gastronomical nose to the left, and the President S. declared such a misfortune ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... perfection and happiness of others as well as his own, i.e., will love them, for to love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others. To promote the good of all, again, is the same as to contribute one's share to the world-harmony and to co-operate in the fulfillment of God's purposes. Probity and piety are the same. They form the highest of the three grades of natural right, which Leibnitz distinguishes as jus strictum (mere right, with the principle: Injure no one), aequitas (equity or charity, with the maxim: To each his due), and probitas ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... royal troops openly revolted, and fought against each other like deadly enemies. The nobles, divided in their views, arrogated to themselves in different places the titles and powers of command. Public faith and private probity seemed alike destroyed. Pillage, violence and ferocity were the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... advertisement appeared in every available medium with the following, well displayed: "Reference as to probity, by special permission, the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... speak thus, "Heavens!" he exclaimed, "whom can we trust in these times? There is no faith left among men. I saw Sinbad perish with my own eyes, as did also the passengers on board, and yet you tell me you are that Sinbad. What impudence is this? To look on you, one would take you to be a man of probity, and yet you tell a horrible falsehood, in order to possess yourself of what does not belong to you." "Have patience," replied I; "do me the favour to hear what I have to say." "Very well," said he, "speak, I am ready to hear you." Then I told him how I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... away from the straight path, from the vouchsafed vision of excellence. He will not be led into perdition by the seductions of sentiment, of eloquence, of humour, of pathos; of all that splendid pageant of faults that pass between the writer and his probity on the blank sheet of paper, like the glittering cortege of deadly sins before the austere anchorite in the desert air of Thebaide. This is not to say that Maupassant's austerity has never faltered; but the fact remains that no tempting demon has ever succeeded in hurling ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... wrestling with the divine mysteries, and having made oath in the upper spheres not to use the power of the Name till he was forty years old save four, and though outwardly he was clad in coarse garments and broken boots, yet all his fellow-townsmen felt the purity and probity that seemed to emanate from him. He was seen to perform ablutions far oftener than of custom; and in disputes men came to him as umpire, nor was even the losing party ever dissatisfied with his decision. When ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... of doors for the best parts of his days and nights, he has manifold weather and seasons in him, and the manners of an animal of probity and virtues unstained. Of our moralists he seems the wholesomest; and the best republican citizen in the world,—always at home, and minding his own affairs. Perhaps a little over-confident sometimes, and stiffly individual, dropping society clean out of his theories, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... "The Flying Dutchman," and the character of Kundry, in "Parsifal," has application in the legend of Peter Rugg. This strange man, who lived in Middle Street, Boston, with his wife and daughter, was esteemed, as a person of probity and good manners except in his swearing fits, for he was subject to outbursts of passion, when he would kick his way through doors instead of opening them, bite tenpenny nails in two, and curse his wig off In the autumn of 1770 he visited Concord, with his little girl, and on the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... workmen is employed at Saltaire or in the Platt works at Oldham there must be many grades of promotion and many subordinate places of trust and emolument to which the workmen may rise by industry and probity without capital ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... thing he does with it is to try it upon a simple case, and if it produce a false result, he is sure that there must be some mistake in the demonstration. Now to proceed in this way with what may be called Mr. Hume's theorem. If twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should be deceived: if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of this account, should call these men into ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... choosing only such as he thought from their good character to be adapted for his ideal colony. The change which their new and strange surroundings had operated in these peaceful, simple folk was not unnatural; loosed from all the anchors that held them to habits of industry and probity, they found themselves caught in new currents; cupidity was awakened by the gold-fever that infected all the colonists, the pious projects with which they left Spain under the guidance of their apostolic leader were easily abandoned when the influence of his enthusiasm ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... influenced his policy. No man was ever advanced to political (p. 242) power in Henry's reign, merely because he pandered to the King's vanity or to his vices. No one was a better judge of conduct in the case of others, or a sterner champion of moral probity, when it did not conflict with his own desires or conscience. In 1528 Anne Boleyn and her friends were anxious to make a relative abbess of Wilton.[686] But she had been notoriously unchaste. "Wherefore," wrote Henry to Anne herself, "I would not, for all the gold in the world, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... sober, God-fearing people; intelligent and upright, without pretension and without humility. He grew up in the company of boys like himself, wholesome, honest, self-respecting. They looked down on nobody; they never felt it possible they could be looked down upon. Their houses were the homes of probity, piety, patriotism. They learned in the admirable school readers of fifty years ago the lessons of heroic and splendid life which have come down from the past. They read in their weekly newspapers the story of the world's progress, in which they were eager to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... strict account. You will be a member of parliament, but if you think we are going to serve you, and not you us, you are greatly mistaken. You thought that the steps of the ladder on which you will ascend are composed of rascals? Hold on! We, who have elected you—we, in whose probity you do not believe—we will watch you and judge you. If you are guilty we will crush you. We have elected you; now ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,

... have convinced them that, if ever our Church at large should so far degenerate as that a majority of any future General Synod should not only be so void of common Christian integrity, but so destitute of every sentiment of probity and honor, as to wish those evils which have been feared, still even then the attainments of them would, in our happy government, be physically and civilly impossible." (14.) Repudiating the charge of the Tennessee Synod ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... the various officials in the territory, wrote of the Femme Osage Syndic: "Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, I have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... was in ancient Persia a shepherd named Dakianos, who for thirty years had attended his sheep without having ever neglected the holy custom of making his daily prayers. All those who knew him did justice to his probity; and nature had endowed him with an eloquence capable of raising him to the highest employments, had he lived ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... adored by the Amazons, and is essentially the same as the Egyptian Isis. She represents universal female Nature. The Thesmophorian rites, which are believed by most writers to have been introduced into Greece directly from Thrace, were performed by "virgins distinguished for probity in life, who carried about in procession sacred books ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... Whether the wealth and prosperity of our country do not hang by a hair, the probity of one banker, the caution of another, and the lives ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... upon the justice of their cause, will cheerfully commit the arbitrament of it to a prince equally distinguished for the independence of his spirit, his indefatigable assiduity to the duties of his station, and his inflexible personal probity. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... manlier life. The police were easily persuaded of his innocence; and, after he had given what help he could in the subsequent investigations, he was even complimented by one of the chiefs of the detective department on the probity and simplicity of his behaviour. Several persons interested themselves in one so unfortunate; and soon after he inherited a sum of money from a maiden aunt in Worcestershire. With this he married Prudence, and set sail for Bendigo, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... given to understand that a friend of mine one whom I shall never be ashamed to acknowledge as {18} such tho' lowly his origine; nay not only not ashamed but proud of doing so for I am one of those who esteem and respect a man according to his ability and probity, deeming with Dr. Watts 'that the mind is the standard of the man,'[40] has laid before you and asked your opinion of his extraordinary performance, viz. the quadrature of the circle, he did this with the firmest belief that you would not only treat the matter ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... case at any cost. It is likewise true that the courts allow too large a liberty to lawyers in the examination of witnesses for the opposition, permitting them to call in question the honor of men of well-known probity and cast suspicion on the character of women full as good as their wives in order to make an impression on the jury that will redound to the interest of cut-throat clients. It has come to such a pass in this ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... heart, the one from the other. As a friend, as a husband, as a father, as a man, I know none to rival H.S. Smith. He never aspired to political distinction: content to pursue, through life, the honorable and responsible business of a merchant, he has distinguished himself for energy, capacity, probity, and success; and in his advanced years enjoys the confidence and esteem of all honest men. Our years have been, since 1826, spent apart—communication, however, has never ceased between us, and the early friendship, so remarked ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... however, was disturbed by an unexpected opposition in his trade, at the same village, and to add to his misfortune, the new comer established himself directly opposite to the old cobbler's stall, and at the same time to show his learning and probity, painted in large letters over his door, "Mens conscia recti." To conceive the meaning of this, the poor cobbler laboured night and day, but unsuccessfully; he at last determined that this "consciarecti" was a new sort of shoe made for men's use; he therefore painted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... above temptation. It had come out that he had committed, some said three, others as many as fifteen secret murders. All the time that the neighbours had looked on his white head in church as the very standard of probity, and all the prudential virtues rewarded, they were admiring and honouring a masked assassin. They had been bringing into their homes and families an undivulged and terrible monster. The wher-wolf had walked the homely streets of their village. The ghoul, unrecognised, had prowled among the graves ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of mankind. Thus defective in every relationship, whether to Constitution, commerce, or toleration, I will suppose this man to have added much private improbity to public crimes; that his probity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a level with ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... colonies, Franklin was deprived of his office, and Mr. Hugh Finlay, a subordinate of the great republican philosopher, was appointed Deputy Postmaster General for Canada. Mr. Finlay had been given great proofs of capacity under the previous regime, and being a man of very high character and probity, he was armed with large discretionary powers to put the mail system of Canada on a better footing, and to make its operations more extended and regular. Until 1790, there were added but two intermediate post-offices between Quebec and Montreal; in the year following, offices ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... drags it in, unless he wants to make us believe that his eye-witnesses suffered all the tortures he quotes; but even Paley cannot pretend that there is a scintilla of proof of their undergoing any such trials. Thus falls the whole argument based on the "twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known," dying for the persistent assertion of "a miracle wrought before their eyes," who are used as a parallel of the apostles, as an argument against Hume. For we have not yet proved that there were any eye-witnesses, or that they made any ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... personal interest in this labor; for, his funded property having been sold some days before at great loss, it was certain that the sale of all his remaining possessions would not exceed the amount of his debts. It was a noble sentiment of honor and probity that compelled him to sacrifice his rest for his creditors, so as to diminish as much as he could the amount of their losses. It was clear that De Vlierbeck did not intend to prolong his stay at Grinselhof after the sale; for among the articles to be offered were the only two bedsteads in the house, ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... debarred him from hunting, but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... until all the judges were men who had received a good special education and had a practical acquaintance with judicial matters. This has now been effected, and the present generation of judges are better prepared and more capable than their predecessors. On the score of probity I have ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... mixture of nitric acid, sulphur, and stewed bones. It is better, whatever the chemical identity of the products may be, that each should receive a distinctive epithet, and be asked for and supplied, in vulgar English, and vulgar probity, either as essence of lemons, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... John; but Buckingham was impervious to his advice and treated him just as he pleased. It is possible, again, that Lady Villiers, without having any of the affection which a wife ought to have for a husband, may have had a sort of respect for him as a man of probity, much older than herself, who treated her well and ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... mind, by ardent virtue graced and warm'd. To whom my pen so oft pours forth my heart; Mansion of noble probity, who art A tower of strength 'gainst all assault full arm'd. O rose effulgent, in whose foldings, charm'd, We view with fresh carnation snow take part! O pleasure whence my wing'd ideas start To that bless'd vision which no eye, unharm'd, Created, may approach—thy name, if rhyme ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... world—there, I verily believe, he found it. His was a happy lot: he possessed a lady in his wife, who at once shared his virtues and adorned them. The glory he won was reflected sweetly upon her, and she wore with dignity, and enhanced those honours, that his probity, his talents, and his eloquence had acquired. At the time of which I am speaking, he was blessed with daughters, that even in their childhood had made themselves conspicuous by their accomplishments, amiability of disposition, and gracefulness ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... writers whom it is creditable for one in her situation to have relished.[1] Her kindness and tenderness of heart peculiarly endeared her to Friedrich. Her husband appears to have been a person of great probity and meekness of temper, sincerely desirous to approve himself a useful member of society, and to do his duty conscientiously to all men. The seeds of many valuable qualities had been sown in him by nature; and though his early life had been unfavourable for their cultivation, he at a late ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... stability, that, after all their losses, and after payment of the costs of their bankruptcy, the creditors received a dividend of nineteen shillings and eightpence in the pound. Mr. Smith, of this firm, was a man of great shrewdness and probity, and was greatly esteemed by his friends. The late Mr. Thomas Upfill had, in his dining-room, an excellent life-size portrait of Mr. Smith, taken, probably, about the year 1820. This portrait is now in the possession of a lady at Harborne. The face is a shrewd and observant one, and ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... McGraw started an investigation she could stand the strain no longer. She fled in terror to the Pennycook home and made certain demands upon Mrs. Pennycook; who took refuge in her well-known reputation for probity and principle and informed Miss Pickett that she was "actin' crazy like"; whereupon Miss Pickett sought Dan Pennycook and hysterically confessed to the authorship of that fatal anonymous note, alleging as extenuating ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... nearly midnight, and my people were dropping with fatigue. Nevertheless, a sense of the desperate nature of the case animating them, they formed themselves voluntarily into a kind of council, all feeling their probity attacked; in which various modes of forcing the secret from those who held it were proposed—Maignan's suggestions being especially violent. Doubting, however, whether Madame had more than one confidante, I secretly made up my mind ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... securing to America not only material prosperity, but, more important still, forcing our recognition as a separate and independent power, and creating for the new confederation of states a place among the brotherhood of nations. Confident that Mr. Jefferson's astuteness, erudition, and probity would make a powerful impression upon those whom it was so much to our interest to attach to us, Congress had, on the 7th day of May, 1784, appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary for the negotiation of foreign commercial treaties. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... genius a small portion of the riches that he was about to create. Judge of my surprise when I found the celebrated Burke at their head. Is it possible, then, that men may devote themselves to deep studies, possess knowledge and probity, exercise to an eminent degree oratorical powers that move the feelings, and influence political assemblies, yet sometimes be deficient in plain common-sense? Now, however, owing to the wise and important modifications introduced by Lord Brougham in the laws relative to patents, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... Yes!—but to see her frequently, to be brought back into any of the old social or political relations to her and Maxwell, from this his pride shrank no less than his conscience. Yet there was a large party in his constituency, and belonging to it some of the men whose probity and intelligence he had come to rate most highly, who were pressing him hard not to resign in February, and, indeed, not to resign at all. The few public meetings he had so far addressed had been stormy indeed, but on the whole decidedly friendly to him, and it was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... battle to those who were surrounding them. They resisted to the last. But as their numbers diminished more and more, they were finally forced into a smaller circle, and all put to the sword. Attilius and Servilius, two persons of great probity, who had distinguished themselves in the combat as true Romans, were also killed on ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... reliable a manager, he left the business entirely in his hands. This was a post of unusual responsibility for one so young, but Amos Lawrence accepted it promptly, and labored to discharge its duties faithfully. He at once established the character for probity and fairness which distinguished him through life; his simple assertion was sufficient in any matter, being received with implicit trust by all who knew him. His duties kept him constantly employed, and though he lived within a mile of his father's ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... entrusted with the power to punish.'[410] He endeavours to give a rather more precise distinction by subdividing 'ethics in general' into three classes. Duty may be to oneself, that is 'prudence'; or to one's neighbour negatively, that is 'probity'; or to one's neighbour positively, that is 'benevolence.'[411] Duties of the first class must be left chiefly to the individual, because he is the best judge of his own interest. Duties of the third class again are generally too vague to be enforced by the legislator, though a man ought ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... and well-fed malefactor swept over the jester. The man's assumed heartiness, his manner of joviality and good-fellowship, were only the mask of moral turpitude and blackest purpose. But for the lawless scholar, the fool would probably have retired to his bed with full confidence in the probity and honesty of the greatest delinquent of ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Fenwick was a gentleman of good repute, whom he had heard of before now. He had married the Lady Mary Howard, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, and, though a stanch Jacobite, it was supposed, he was nevertheless looked upon as a man of undoubted probity and honour. What could have been his business, then, with thieves, or at best with the companions of thieves? This was a question which Wilton could no ways solve; and after having teased himself for some time therewith, he at length descended to the little parlour of the ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... the country government, the principal active person in the administration of affairs, for rank, and for reputation of probity, and of knowledge in the revenues and the laws, was Mahomed Reza Khan, who, besides large landed property, was possessed of offices whose emoluments amounted nearly, if not altogether, to one ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... With a probity of character known to all, with an intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of statement which was in itself an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration, —often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind,—and with that sincerity and earnestness ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... Sir Mungo Barebones, the representative of a very ancient family in the north; his affairs are very much deranged, but he is a gentleman of great probity and learning, and at present engaged in a very grand scheme, which, if he can bring it to bear, will render him famous to all posterity; no less than the conversion of the Jews and the Gentiles. The project, I own, looks chimerical to one who has not conversed with the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... which Cardan wrote shortly after his return from Britain, he lets it be seen that he was not ill-satisfied with the figure he then made in the world. He writes—"Therefore, since all those with whom I am intimate think well of me for my truth and probity, I can let my envious rivals indulge themselves as they list in the shameful habit of evil-speaking. With regard to folly, if I now utter, or ever have uttered, foolish words, let those who accuse me show their evidence. I, who was born poor, with a weakly body, in an age vexed almost incessantly ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... great intellectual endowments, large culture, great probity and earnestness in his devotion to the public interests, has passed from the position, power, and usefulness to which he had ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... stood up before the Council as I would think none save innocent man should do, and looked the Queen straight in the face. He was not witched with her gramary; and soothly I count in all that hall he was the sole noble that escaped the spell. A brave man was he, of great probity, prudent in council, valiant in war: maybe something too readily swayed by other folks (the Queen except), where he loved them (which he did not her), and from this last point came all ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... The penalties at one time were only the forfeiture of the goods seized, and if one vessel's cargo escaped out of two or three, it was a profitable trade. The measures of Government were then thought to be so stringent and despotic, that men of principle, of probity, and integrity in all other respects, manifested great obliquity of vision in viewing the traffic in smuggled goods, and felt no compunctious visitings in embarking in that trade. In the better class of houses in the district, hiding holes and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... observes as follows, p. 157, Free Inquiry: "Now it is agreed by all, that these fathers, whose testimonies I have been just reciting were the most eminent lights of the fourth century; all of them sainted by the catholic church, and highly reverenced at this day in all churches, for their piety, probity, and learning. Yet from the specimens of them above given, it is evident, that they would not scruple to propagate any fiction, how gross so ever, which served to promote the interest either of Christianity ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English

... through the branches The probity of man; and this He wills Who gives it, so that we may ask ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward



Words linked to "Probity" :   integrity



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