And on their way back to the hotel, she added: "You are a nation without virtue."

But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

And maybe he was right, but that didn't mean viciousness was without virtue.

The women, though without virtue, are their masters and sovereigns.

"After a year or two, some of them begin to view the neighborhood as populated with adversaries, people without virtue who don't deserve respect," he said.

If a collective ethic is replaced by a personal one, we are not left a landscape without virtue.

This is not to say that the wide screen is without virtue.

"I will feel totally without virtue, tomorrow," she replied grimly.

Nor is Houellebecq, shrill and even silly as he can be, entirely without literary virtue.

"I will feel totally without virtue, tomorrow," she re- plied grimly.