there is no honor in donning the life as a livery.
 George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876). copy citation

add
Author George Eliot
Source Daniel Deronda
Topic honor life
Date 1876
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7469/pg7469-images.html

Context

“ready, like all true lovers, to endure, to wait, to say, I am not yet worthy, but she—Art, my mistress—is worthy, and I will live to merit her. An honorable life? Yes. But the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won achievement: there is no honor in donning the life as a livery." Some excitement of yesterday had revived in Klesmer and hurried him into speech a little aloof from his immediate friendly purpose. He had wished as delicately as possible to rouse in Gwendolen a sense of her unfitness for a perilous, difficult course;” source