APAD: Make a virtue of necessity

Meaning:

   Obtain kudos from apparently willingly doing something that one was in fact

   couldn't avoid doing. It is also used to mean `submit with good grace'.

 

Background:

   This is first recorded in Chaucer. Shakespeare also used it in Two Gentlemen

   of Verona, 1591.

 

     Second Outlaw Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,

     Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you:

     Are you content to be our general?

     To make a virtue of necessity

     And live, as we do, in this wilderness?

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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Out of habit, some people make a necessity of virtues. These eccentrics ignore

standards and fads and live a comical life. My friend Bill needs both hands to

crack an egg. After dumping the main content, he has to make sure to scoop the

last drop from each half eggshell using an index finger. He then plants the

leftover in his herb pots and claims it beats any fertilizer from the store. We

laugh at his oddities all the time.