Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Will Honeycomb labels overly sensitive ladies as outrageously virtuous.
In plain terms
Excessive virtue can be called outrage by others.
What can you take from it?
Perceived moral superiority often draws criticism.

Where it applies

  • social gatherings
  • literary satire
  • public discourse

Putting it to work

  • satire
  • social commentary
  • writing

Questions to consider

  • Is virtue ever performative?
  • How is excess judged?

Another view

It dismisses genuine moral sensitivity as mere posturing.

More from Richard Steele

  1. Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.

    Permalink to quote #10
  2. A favor well bestowed is almost as great an honor to him who confers it as to him who receives it.

    Permalink to quote #12
  3. Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.

    Permalink to quote #9

Related quotes

  1. The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?

    William Makepeace ThackerayWilliam Makepeace Thackeray quote #5
  2. There's no sinner like a young saint.

    Aphra BehnAphra Behn quote #2
  3. Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Phar…

    Charlotte BronteCharlotte Bronte quote #3