make a virtue of necessity

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make a virtue of necessity (third-person singular simple present makes a virtue of necessity, present participle making a virtue of necessity, simple past and past participle made a virtue of necessity)

  1. (idiomatic) To make the best of a difficult situation; to recast or portray an action or situation in which one has no alternatives as an action or situation which was deliberately chosen on its merits.
    • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
      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?
    • 1906, George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, Preface:
      Nietzsche, as I gather, regarded the slave-morality as having been invented and imposed on the world by slaves making a virtue of necessity and a religion of their servitude.

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