righteous stresses guiltlessness or blamelessness and often suggests the sanctimonious.
wished to be righteous before God and the world
noble implies moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean, or dubious in conduct and character.
had the noblest of reasons for seeking office
Example Sentences
In a kind of virtuous circle, the "second tier" schools got better as applications rose and they could become choosier in assembling a class—which in turn raised the quality of the whole experience on campus and made the school more attractive to both topflight professors and the next wave of applicants. Nancy Gibbs et al., Time, 21 Aug. 2006In its quest to create ice cream as voluptuous as butter and as virtuous as broccoli, the ice cream industry has probed the depths of the Arctic Ocean, studied the intimate structures of algae and foisted numerous failures on the American public. Julia Moskin, New York Times, 26 July 2006Children born into high-income households become part of a virtuous circle of success. Parents with university degrees tend to earn more, set higher educational goals for their children, and invest more time in the children's schooling than parents who have a high-school education or less. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, BusinessWeek, 7 July 2003We redefined virtue as health. And considering the probable state of our souls, this was not a bad move. By relocating the seat of virtue from the soul to the pecs, the abs and the coronary arteries, we may not have become the most virtuous people on earth, but we surely became the most desperate for grace. We spend $5 billion a year on our health-club memberships, $2 billion on vitamins, nearly $1 billion on home exercise equipment, and $6 billion on sneakers to wear out on our treadmills and StairMasters. Barbara Ehrenreich, Utne Reader, May/June 1992 She felt that she had made a virtuous decision by donating the money to charity. virtuous behavior is its own rewardSee More
Recent Examples on the WebThis can start a virtuous cycle, in which the recipient of compassion gets a little more resilient and becomes better able to show compassion themselves. Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2022 Two, creates an incentive for brands and retailers to create and merchandise products in better materials, thus creating a virtuous cycle. Esha Chhabra, Forbes, 18 Aug. 2022 Planting trees became even more virtuous with the realization of the threats posed by anthropogenic climate change.New York Times, 13 July 2022 Nor were crosswords the last gaming trend to spark hand-wringing from people worried that players were ignoring more virtuous pursuits. Nicole Hemmer, CNN, 3 Feb. 2022 Are Australian men simply more virtuous than their American counterparts? Matt Ford, The New Republic, 13 Aug. 2021 Forgoing your own joy for the sake of another person might seem like the more virtuous path, but that is a lose-lose strategy, kind of like suffocating without an oxygen mask while struggling to put on someone else’s. Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 22 July 2021 Central banks have been trying to be more virtuous. Frank Van Gansbeke, Forbes, 17 Apr. 2021 The internet is, as ever, divided, almost immediately descending into a virtuous debate. Raven Smith, Vogue, 20 July 2022 See More