Brewer's: Necessity

Make a virtue of necessity. (Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 1.)

“Quintilian has laudem virtutis necessitati damus: St. Jerome (epistle 54 section 6), Fac de necessitate virtutem. In the Roman de la Rose, line 14058, we find S'il ne fait de necessite virtu, and Boccaccio has Si come savia fatta della necessita.”

Necessity the tyrant's plea. (Milton: Paradise Lost, book iv. verse 393.)

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