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Openness   /ˈoʊpənnəs/  /ˈoʊpənəs/   Listen
Openness

noun
1.
Without obstructions to passage or view.
2.
Characterized by an attitude of ready accessibility (especially about one's actions or purposes); without concealment; not secretive.  Synonym: nakedness.
3.
Willingness or readiness to receive (especially impressions or ideas).  Synonyms: receptiveness, receptivity.  "This receptiveness is the key feature in oestral behavior, enabling natural mating to occur" , "Their receptivity to the proposal"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Openness" Quotes from Famous Books



... breeze was fresh and the waves rather high. In paddling along the west side of Parry's Bay, we saw several deer, but owing to the openness of the country, the hunters could not approach them. They killed, however, two swans that were moulting, several cranes and many gray geese. We procured also some caccawees, which were then moulting, and assembled in immense flocks. In the evening, having rounded Point Beechy, and passed Hurd's ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... features whose magic consisted in neither their strength nor beauty, but in their flexibility. I had never seen a countenance so capable of change, and in which the change was so instantaneous and so total. From the most sportive openness, a word threw it into the most indignant storm, or the most incurable despair. From wild joy, it was suddenly clouded with a weight of sorrow that "refused to be comforted." His accents were singularly sweet, yet clear; and, like his change ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... with which I was now united, I found those allurements and delights, which the friendship of young men always affords; there was that openness which naturally produced confidence, and that ardour of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... managed to give a prairie-like suggestion of openness to her living-room plan and I told her to make John reach for a few things. It would do him good and save ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... afterwards travelled together, through the most wild and inaccessible parts of the interior of Tahiti and Eimeo; and in the course of this intimacy, I discovered much in him to esteem and admire. There was in his character, such a union of gentleness and courage, such childlike openness of disposition, and such romantic fidelity to what he considered the obligations of friendship, as reminds me of young Edmund, in Johnny's favourite story of Asiauga's Knight. With a chivalrous daring, that could face the most appalling danger without a tremor, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... the world takes an interest, I should think it right to place them in the hands of his nearest relations, leaving it to them to deal with such documents as a sense of what is due to the public and what belongs to openness and honesty may demand." ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... December, 1668, about one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minister of Voorhout, of whom his son [34], in a small account of his own life, has given a very amiable character, for the simplicity and openness of his behaviour, for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous family of nine children: he was eminently ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... Barbara's openness about her parents was in harmony with her simplicity and straightforwardness. She was proud of her mother and the way she put things, therefore told all ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... statement will require some explanation," continued the man in black, "and I will make it presently. I am going to be exceedingly frank and open in all that I say to you, and as frankness and openness are so extremely rare in this world, it may be that I shall obtain favor in your eyes from the fact of my possessing those unusual qualities. Originally I was a teacher, and for a year or two I had a very good country school; but my employment at last became so repugnant to me that I could no longer ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... not a bad one. He chose that tone of casual openness which, while it does not wholly commit itself, may be regarded as suggestive of the amiable half confidence of speeches made ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... engage in open, intentional disobedience, are, of course, greatly varied, and the exact treatment will depend upon the features of the individual case. But the frankness, the openness, the plain dealing, and the kind and friendly tone, which it is the object of the foregoing illustrations to ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... the most candid of men. It was this very candour, this freedom from bigotry, this want of conviction, and this openness to conviction, that made him so dangerous and caused so much anxiety to Philip. The Roman Church might or might not be strengthened by the re-conversion of the legitimate heir of France, but it was certain ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... there be to the instinctive consciousness that concealment is debauching, and openness our only cure, than the world-old conviction of the virtue of confession for the soul, and that the uttermost exposing of one's worst and foulest is the first step toward moral health? The wickedest man, if he could but somehow attain to writhe himself inside ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... competition, and began his studies at Marischal College. The open competition for bursaries at Aberdeen was a subject on which he delighted to talk, often with tears of enthusiasm in his eyes. The entire impartiality, the complete openness of these competitions to the whole world, the spectacle of high learning freely offered to whoever could by merit earn it, seemed to Dr Burton, to his life's end, as fine a subject of contemplation as any the world could offer. During his last illness, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... can handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing wanted, then was my early position favourable beyond the most. In all that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have wished? On the other side, however, things went not so well. My Active Power (Thatkraft) was ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... and in the clamour thus raised the subject dropped; but when next morning, in the openness of his heart, Lance invited Clement to go with them to share the untold joys of rabbit-shooting, he met with a decisive reply. 'Certainly not! I should think your Dean would ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Priscilla might be forgiven for being so aggravating. Whereupon Priscilla knelt before her bed, and prayed that Keren might become less self-righteous and stubborn, and more ready to join in the sports of her playmates with generosity and openness of spirit. They carried on—well, really, one might almost call it ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... feeling; she would ten times prefer a less diligent and more troublesome pupil, in whom she could take some interest, and who showed some affection, to one so steady and correct in behaviour, without the frank openness of heart which was so delightful. To make up, however, for this general want of liking for poor Marian, on the other hand, every one was fond of Gerald. His behaviour in the schoolroom was so very nice and good, and out of doors his climbing, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... horses and cattle grazed upon miles back on the slope. The air was hot down here. The breeze was heavy and smelled of fire, and the sand was blowing here and there. She had a sense of the bigness, the openness of this valley, and then she realized its wildness and strangeness. These lonely, isolated monuments made the place different from any she had visited. They did not seem mere standing rocks. They seemed to retreat all the time as she approached, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... and prosperous and healthy. What one misses in it is any sense of intimate cosiness. One seems to be nearer the elements, farther from the ingratiating works of man, than hitherto in any Dutch town. The strong air, the openness of land, the 180 degrees of sky, the northern sharpness, all are far removed from the solace of the chimney corner. It is a Spartan people, preferring hard health to overcoats; and the streets and houses ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... six years. Tradesmen, conscious of the coming event, had had their little delicacies and made their little hints. But she had thrown all these to the wind. She had spoken of Sir Henry as Sir Henry, and of herself as being now Miss Waddington, but soon about to be Lady Harcourt, with a studied openness. She had looked to carriages and broughams—and horses also under Sir Henry's protection—as though these things were dear to her soul. But they were not dear, though in her heart she tried to teach herself that they were so. For many a long year—many at least in her ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... attitude to the foreigners tended to confound good and bad alike in a general condemnation. Even the Savoyards were by no means as evil as the English thought them, and Henry in welcoming his kinsmen was not merely moved by selfish and unworthy motives; he believed that he was showing his openness to ideas and his welcome to all good things from whencesoever they came. There were, in fact, two tendencies, antagonistic yet closely related, which were operative, not only in England but all over western Europe, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... to this remarkable man, perhaps the following page or two from a traveller's journal may prove acceptable to the public. The absolutely total obscurity of the subject in America, may also, it is hoped, serve as an apology for the openness of detail and apparent breach of etiquette in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... of foot answered and said unto him: "Heaven-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, in openness must I now declare unto you my saying, even as I am minded and as the fulfilment thereof shall be, that ye may not sit before me and coax this way and that. For hateful to me even as the gates of hell is he that ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... person. But as one came to know him better, one was surprised to discover beneath this humble exterior, one of the rarest things in the world, viz., unalloyed cordiality, motherly condescension, and a charming openness of manner. I have never met with any one so entirely free from personal vanity. He was the first to laugh at himself, at his half intentional blunders, and at the laughable situations into which his artlessness ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... pray you, sir, Deliver with more openness your answers To my demands. Why do you ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness of heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same charm, the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... accord, to meet the Popish Priests upon the spot where their crimes are perpetrated, and the stronghold of their power. Whether that measure was the most prudent and politic for herself, and the most wise and efficient for the acquisition of the avowed object, may be disputed; but the exemplary openness and the magnanimous daring of that act cannot ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... us, I dare say, in less than two months you will forget our advice, and before you have been at school half that time, you will get to squabbling with and tricking the other boys, just as they do with one another; and instead of playing at all times with the strictest openness and honour, you will, I sadly fear, learn to cheat, and deceive, and pay no attention to what your mother and I have been telling you.' 'No', that I am sure I sha'n't!' replied the boy. 'What! do you think I shall be so wicked as to turn a thief, and cheat people?' 'I dare say, my dear,' ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... two straps on a strip of wood, shaped like a scabbard. But all these were mere accessories; what distinguished him was his free graceful carriage, the lightness and ease of his motions, the frankness and openness of his countenance. ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... some moments, looking at him with a thoughtful openness that, he felt, was almost marital in its sharing ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... low inflation. Risk premiums on Peruvian bonds on secondary markets reached historically low levels in late 2004, reflecting investor optimism regarding the government's prudent fiscal policies and openness to trade and investment. Despite the strong macroeconomic performance, underemployment and poverty have stayed persistently high. Economic growth continues to be driven by the Camisea natural gas megaproject and by exports of minerals, textiles, and agricultural ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... brilliant sunshine under a sky of dazzling blue. Banded with miles of wheat, flecked with crimson flowers, it stretched back, brightly green, until it grew gray and blue on the far horizon. It was relieved by the neutral purple of poplar bluffs, and little gleaming lakes; its vastness and openness filled the girl with a sense of liberty. Narrow restraints, cramping prejudices, must vanish in this wide country; one's nature could expand and become ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... working rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to the crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing it now, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the openness with which he exposed ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... decorum. He has a motive indeed in doing so; a desire to learn from the knave in his cups the plans and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome. Such conduct, however, was inconsistent with strict fair dealing and openness; and the author advises all those whose consciences never reproach them for a single unfair or covert act committed by them, to abuse him heartily for administering hollands and water to the Priest of Rome. In that instance the hero is certainly ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... broken her engagement to marry Macdonald ebbed away as the weeks passed. It was impossible for her to wait upon him in his illness and hold any repugnance toward this big, elemental man. The thing he had done might be wrong, but the very openness and frankness of his relation to Meteetse redeemed it from shame. He was neither a ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... not to acknowledge his manifold services. Now I had heard a little before from an English traveller, that the name of my goblin in his language meant foolish, and that in England such a creature was called Puck, or Robin Goodfellow; and when in the openness of my heart I told all this to my little guest, and at the same time, because he had just frightened me again, wanted to hang a bell about his neck, that I might always hear him when he was coming, the urchin became angry ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... the way like a bloodhound, skirting lighted houses and following devious inland paths. The comparative openness of the village began to give way to the ranker undergrowth of the plantations behind it. The path sank into a choking vegetation that stood on either side and brushed their faces as they followed in single file. A fallen tree gave ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... him at first much openness of mind toward me. He related to me the mercies God had shown him, and several extraordinary things, which gave me at first some fear. I suspected some illusion, especially in such things as flatter ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... Craufurd as "the friend of Mr. Hamilton, who to that exact frugality, that downright probity and pliancy of manners so suitable to his profession, joined a love of learning and of all the ingenious arts, an openness of hand and a generosity of heart that was far both from vanity and from weakness, and a magnanimity that would support, under the prospect of approaching and inevitable death, a most torturing pain of body with an unalterable cheerfulness ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... of Lincoln's character was his honesty. Some men are naturally secretive: Lincoln was naturally open as sunshine. The exact fact, truth in the hidden parts, openness, these were the innermost fibre of his being. Machiavelli laid out the diplomat's career on the line of deceit, and concealing the cards. Lincoln would have made a poor diplomat,—he spread all his cards out on the table. He won from his opponent, ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... spirit-land. Then you will not be surprised at the pretensions, claims, and success of Anti-Christ. In our calm and unprejudiced consideration of these organisations, we are bound to admit that they have done more, and owe more for their success, to deception and error, than to truth and openness. Each in its turn has been caught in the act of deceiving, and has been frequently exposed, but of what avail? Truly but little. We do not mean that in these systems there is no good, for surely there is, but that the errors and deceptions ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... great clumsy boats; on the shore a multitude of women frozen with cold or apprehension, trying to warm themselves in the sun. When the work was at an end and the boats had landed, the beach was covered with fish of every kind. These good people have the simplicity, the openness, the filial and fraternal piety of old time. As the men come down from their boats, their wives throw themselves into their arms, they embrace their fathers and their little ones; each loads himself with fish; the son tosses his father a codfish or a salmon, which the old man carries ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... the letters to the world. Of course if there had been any idea in the mind of the writer that they would be published, she would probably have been far more reticent; but, as it was, she spoke with a perfect openness and simplicity of all that was in her mind. It is curious to reflect that I met the writer more than once, and thought her a cold, hard, unsympathetic woman. She had to endure many sorrows and bereavements, losing, by untimely death, those whom she most loved; but the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... countenance, this openness of manner, this freedom of speech, this unrestrained good-nature, even those who had been warned, could not help saying: "Well indeed! this Cure has a ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... utterly to see that he was the most supremely silent of the great men of action that the world can show." Let us admit the justice of the strictures on Carlyle, but let us ask whether Washington's letters at this time spring from a "silent" man. He writes with perfect openness to Governor Dinwiddie; complains of the military system under which the troops are paid and the campaign is managed; he repeatedly condemns the discrimination against the Virginian soldiers in favor of the British regulars; and he points out that instead of attempting to win the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... would come upon him, if he wished to speak about his own feelings on religious matters, or to tell him something which he well knew it was his duty to make known. When one knows how difficult it is to them to speak openly, their openness with the Bishop is more appreciated, though he indeed often enough complained of their closeness with him. The real affection between the boys and the Bishop required no acquaintance with the character of either to discern, and could surprise no one who ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... differences than from their agreements; for of course it was the differences that brought out their minds most, and chiefly led us to think that we might understand. In our house there were very few of those mysteries which in some houses seem so to abound; and I think the openness with which every question, for whose concealment there was no special reason, was discussed, did more than even any direct instruction we received to develop what thinking faculty might be in us. Nor was there much reason to dread that my small brothers might repeat any thing. I remember hearing ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... anybody,—had expressed himself freely about the homestead, and his plans for redeeming it, and about his anxiety for Emily. I could certainly, I thought, bring him to speak of his trouble, if I only had for him a sure word of encouragement. But this I had not, because Mary Ellen was such a puzzle. Her openness served better for hiding the truth than did David's reserve. At the bottom of my heart, though, was full faith in her love for him. I paid her the compliment of believing she was too good to care seriously for such a man as ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kyoto with having intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi's attention been engrossed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... religious soldier for a patron saint who extends her aid and countenance to him in his wars. I do not mean to say that his mind was in a perpetual glow: I mean only that this surrender to impassioned transports was more characteristic of the man than serene openness to influx of enjoyment. His "Thoughts on Poetry and its Varieties," while clear and strenuous as most of his thoughts were, are neither scientifically precise, nor do they contain any notable new idea not previously expressed by Coleridge, except perhaps the idea, that emotions ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... not only intensely, but with an openness that had its disadvantages—not for any greater reason than that he had behaved himself so far in his journey through life more creditably than his brother. She had always made a point against him of his undutiful marriage, and never failed, to add fuel to the fire of his father's and mother's ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... sources of unhappiness in married life is the strife arising from the vexed question of home and personal expenses. In the first place, the husband frequently fails in regard to openness with regard to his business concerns and profits; thus the wife, entirely ignorant as to what amount she may safely spend, errs too often on the side of extravagance, finding too late, when a storm ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... auguring the very best from this openness, answered in tones which he could not prevent from betraying ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... it is left to him generally to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were, have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity: but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... residence at Ferraio. He continued for some time to treat both of these gentlemen with every mark of distinction, and even cordiality: made them the companions of his table and excursions; and conversed with apparent openness and candour on the past, the present, and the future. "There is but one people in the world," said he to Colonel Campbell—"the English—the rest are only so many populaces. I tried to raise the French to your level of sentiment, and failing to do so, fell of course. I am ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... He gazed at her. Ought he, then, to have dealt with her less frankly? Had he been mistaken in thinking that the unusual openness of his talk was attractive to her? She spoke with quite unaccustomed decision; indeed, he had noticed from her entrance that there was something unfamiliar in her way of conversing. She was so much more self-possessed ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... father, the king of Great Britain, who declared, as we have before mentioned the middle of those lakes and the waters which unite them to be the boundaries of the United States. We are determined that our whole conduct shall be marked with openness and sincerity. We therefore frankly tell you, that we think those commissioners put an erroneous construction on that part of our treaty with the king. As he had not purchased the country of you, of course he could not give it away. He only relinquished to the United States ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... quietly telling the men to cease paddling, and the long canoe came to a rest slowly, no more than ten yards from the beach. The party had been provided with a torch which was to be lighted before the canoe touched the shore, thus giving a character of openness to this desperate expedition. "And if it draws fire on us," Jaffir had commented to Jorgenson, "well, then, we shall see whose fate it is to die on ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... my youth thou wast, Of my merry youth, And I see, Tearfully, All the fair and sunny past, All its openness and truth, Ever fresh and green in thee As the moss is ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... question, and showed, not only the greatest reluctance, but a fixed determination, not to come any nearer to it himself than he could possibly help. He has shown nothing like courage, nothing like confidence in the goodness of his cause, nothing like openness, candor, or generosity; nothing but craft and cunning. He has never fought like a soldier, but dodged like an assassin. Honorable men give up a cause that can't be honorably maintained. For myself, ye are witnesses, I came out openly, boldly, and at once, and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... little face in secret for the formality of his address, as she flashed past him. There was a dancing light in her eye he had not seen before—at least, not in the openness of day. There was something daring about her that was a revelation. He knew at once that he need not fear her attitude when they reached the point where she must carry on her part without his aid. She displayed an innocent ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... shame when the religion of Ximenes, Borromeo, and Pascal, is so overlaid? Who can but feel sorrow, when its devout and earnest defenders so mistake its genius and its capabilities? We Englishmen like manliness, openness, consistency, truth. Rome will never gain on us, till she learns these virtues, and uses them; and then she may gain us, but it will be by ceasing to be what we now mean by Rome, by having a right, not to 'have dominion over our faith,' but to gain and possess our affections ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... conduct, and shows that they were partly of a moral character. Want of firmness has been repeatedly mentioned as his principal failing; and insincerity is the natural attendant on a timid and irresolute mind. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that openness and candour are rare qualities in a statesman at all times, and while the duplicity of weakness is despised, the insincerity of a powerful but crafty mind, though incomparably more odious, is too commonly regarded with feelings of indulgence. Cicero was deficient, not in honesty, but in moral ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... of his action paid off. Its openness apparently convinced the Toughs that this was merely another, unusually noisy case of one of the Masters returning to the farm at night—as Dark sensed had occurred often ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... the first time in his native wilds there is frequently a fearless intrepidity of manner, an ingenuous openness of look, and a propriety of behaviour about the aboriginal inhabitant of Australia, which makes his appearance ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... noblest poet, in the grace Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, That brow untouched by one faint line of care, To mar its openness, we seem to trace The front of the first lord of human race, 'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air That characters thy youth. Shall time efface These lineaments as crowding cares assail! It is the lot of fall'n humanity. What ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... two leaves on a twig. Perhaps he has something of his father's Irish openness of manner as well. His father belonged to the younger, what we call the Irish, branch of our family, you know, though it is as English in the matter of blood as I am. We were only second cousins, in point ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... had imbibed, that this sort of comedy had much thwarted her. In the course of the same day I received a visit from the comtesse de Flaracourt. This lady, whose sparkling eyes shone with an air of mischief, presented herself to me with an appearance of openness and confidence which completely cloaked the malignity and treachery of her character. She threw her arms round my neck with as much grace as tenderness, and taking my hand, as if to arrest my attention, said: "I ought, madame, to explain to you the delay ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... and entirely, or not at all. It was quite a matter of course that Ludovico would marry some lady in his rank of life. She was not ignorant of the position in which he stood with regard to the Contessa Violante. And his openness to her on this subject is a curious indication of the very wide difference between the mode in which the whole subject would be looked at by both parties in the world in which they lived, ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... With adroitness he may be pumped of anything. His openness is from character, not from affectation. An intimacy with him may, on this account, be politically valuable. I am, dear Sir, your ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... I loved you like this kneeler, and you me Your second mother: those were gracious times. Then came your new friend: you began to change— I saw it and grieved—to slacken and to cool; Till taken with her seeming openness You turned your warmer currents all to her, To me you froze: this was my meed for all. Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, And partly conscious of my own deserts, And partly that you were my civil ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking, burst forth into raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness; protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... to do some service to France, he would much more chearfully refute these calumnies by his actions, than by his words. The Cardinal resumed an air of serenity, said several obliging things, and assured him that for the future he would behave to him with more openness. He reconducted him a pretty way, politely excusing himself that he did not go farther lest he should be oppressed by the croud that ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny

... woman, but it is natural that she could never bring herself to talk about this period of her life with entire openness. She has, however, written me a letter in which she tells the essential truth, although clothing it with a certain pathetic attempt to conceal the one episode in her life about which, to me, she was perhaps unreasonably reticent. She did ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... a striking example of the fact that a man's openness to Nature increases with his general inner growth. No one doubts that uneducated sailors, like other unlettered people, are vividly impressed by fine scenery, especially when it is new to them, if they possess a spark of mental refinement. They have the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... discomposed. Beefsteaks, sausages, and pigs' fry, though they were taken three times a day, were not disgraceful in her line of life; but that little thimble of brandy, taken after much pressing and in the openness of good fellowship, went sorely against the grain with her. "When one has to be badgered like this, one wants a drop of something more than ordinary," she said at last. And they were the only words which she did say which proved ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... listened for some time to his outpourings, she began to feel reassured; and soon she understood that he was talking thus at random, merely because he was lonely and bottled-up. Before he had finished, she was even a little gratified by his openness, and on his confiding to her what Schwarz had said to him, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... lest they should hear, not a few that are even filled with base astonishment and terror, and out of this with base wrath, to find their deafness assailed. And still further, it must be freely owned that our natures have mysterious elections, and though one desire openness of soul as much as folly fears it, yet may it happen that some tint of peculiarity in the tone of a worthy voice shall render it to him opaque ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... blue-jackets landed in Samoan bush, and expected to hold against Samoans a multiplicity of forest paths, had their work cut out for them. And it was plain they should be landed in the light of day, with a discouraging openness, and even with parade. To sneak ashore by night was to increase the danger of resistance and to minimise the authority of the attack. The thing was a bluff, and it is impossible to bluff with stealth. Yet this was what was tried. A landing-party ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sharing in the extensive distribution of presents. From the appearance of the country about Yoomsan, and the valley of the Namtusseek, I am inclined to think that the population was at one time considerable. The openness of the country, which is as I have previously said chiefly clothed with grass, and the peculiar and generally imperfect aspect of the trees, can only be accounted for, by supposing the country to have been extensively cleared, particularly ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... way to justify his own behaviour in that affair: and now that he has so openly and audaciously invited enquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly told so by the voice of his countrymen.' How far the 'openness' of an anonymous poem, and the 'audacity' of an imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B. may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their 'most sweet voices,' I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I cannot 'in any way justify my own ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... the principles of ease, openness and forwardness—they are the prime factors in enabling your voice to be heard at ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... secession had been passed, Farragut went as usual to the place of meeting, and saw, immediately upon entering, by the faces of those there, that a great change had passed over the relations between them. He spoke with his usual openness, and expressed his deliberate convictions. He did not believe that the action of the convention represented the sober judgment of the people. The State had been, as he phrased it, "dragooned" out of the Union; and President Lincoln was perfectly justified in calling ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... five jobs in our country depends on trade. So, I will propose a broader strategy in the field of international trade—one that increases the openness of our trading system and is fairer to America's farmers and workers in the world marketplace. We must have adequate export financing to sell American products overseas. I will ask for new negotiating authority to remove barriers and to get more of our products into foreign ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... property from seizure on the high seas during war,—and that while, as regards the proceedings of the conference, Russia has wished secrecy, Germany has steadily, from the first, promoted frankness and openness. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... and superstitions of his people, Dmitri prepared for his downfall by his trustfulness and clemency. He dismissed the spies with whom former czars had surrounded themselves, and laid himself freely open to treachery. The result of his acts and his openness was a conspiracy, which was fortunately discovered. Shuiski, its leader, was condemned to be executed. Yet as he knelt with the axe lifted above him, he was respited and banished to Siberia; and on his way thither ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... than he had expected, but he was rather a favourite with the Doctor for his openness and plainness of speech, so blurted out, as he walked by the Doctor's side, who had already ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... for the poor and almost helpless invalid were such that in regard to him he had sunk his own will entirely. As to opinions—well, he did differ from him occasionally, but he did it mildly, and with an openness to conviction which was almost enviable. He called him Bill, Billie, or Little Bill, according to fancy ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... this bull accepted by the clergy. Indeed, he was so free with me, showed me so plainly his knavery and cunning, that I was, as it were, transformed with astonishment and fright. I never could comprehend this openness in a man so false, so artificial, so profound, or see in what manner it ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... his coming, with that wistful eagerness which marked his youth, when the news of Winckelmann's murder arrived. All that "weariness of the North" had revived with double force. He left Vienna, intending to hasten back to Rome. At Trieste a delay of a few days occurred. With characteristic openness, Winckelmann had confided his plans to a fellow-traveller, a man named Arcangeli, and had shown him the gold medals received at Vienna. Arcangeli's avarice was aroused. One morning he entered Winckelmann's room, under pretence of taking leave; Winckelmann was then writing "memoranda for the ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... which ye all have shewn me, and in particular yourself and princely daughter, O king Alcinous, demand from me that I should no longer keep you in ignorance of what or who I am; for to reserve any secret from you, who have with such openness of friendship embraced my love, would argue either a pusillanimous or an ungrateful mind in me. Know then that I am that Ulysses, of whom I perceive ye have heard something; who heretofore have filled the world ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... germination of that seed through a period of years which may be less, and may well be more, than I endured. And I do this with the more content and confidence, that I have little doubt as to what the result will be. I have not lived with you all these years gone by, without learning the openness of your minds, the instinctive passion of your souls for right, the quickness of your sensibilities to all sweet influences of progress and good-will. If there be truth in my conviction for change, it will in time be your conviction, as it is ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes

... even in the last hour than not at all ... surely it is always and under all circumstances, better spoken at whatever cost—I have thought so steadily since I could think or feel at all. An entire openness to the last moment of possible liberty, at whatever cost and consequence, is the most honourable and most merciful way, both for men and women! perhaps for men in an especial manner. But I shall send this letter away, being in haste ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... a pitch that they may become, one cannot but fear, his spiritual ruin. But seeing this does not dispose us, therefore, to lock up all the nation in forms of worship of the New Road type; but it points us to the quite new ideal, of combining grand and national forms of worship with an openness and movement of mind not yet found in any hierarchy. So, again, if we see what is called ritualism making conquests in our Puritan middle- class, we may rejoice that portions of this class should have become alive to the aesthetical weakness of their position, even although they have not ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... very important, and the student should learn to differentiate them as much as possible. This is done, as I have already said, by differences in the size and character of the line, and in the closeness or openness of the rendering. Observe the variety of textures in the drawing of the sculptor by Dantan, Fig. 21. The coat is rendered by such a cross-hatch as "N" in Fig. 10, made horizontally and with heavy lines. ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis

... phrase, they give illustrations of all the historic occasions, kinds, and modes of adaptation; in lacking the exactness of the mathematical and physical sciences they furnish precisely the degree of uncertainty and openness of opportunity and of mental state which the act of living itself demands. In other words the science of life is, if properly presented, the most normal possible introduction to the very practical art of living. Because of the parallel meaning ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... fourteenth centuries, and indeed of every other century, from the time of Hammurabi onward, were equally genial and equally frank. The only century in which customs were not characterised by the same cheerful openness was the nineteenth, of blessed memory. It was the astonishing exception. And yet, with what one must suppose was a deliberate disregard of history, it looked upon its horribly pregnant silences as normal and ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... who seems proud of her large ear-rings, and brings one of them into prominence, either to show it off or to satisfy herself that the jewel becomes her: her head is square-shaped, the shoulders narrow, the chest puny, the pose of the arm stiff and awkward, but the eyes have such a joyful openness, and her smile such a self-satisfied expression, that one readily over looks the other defects of the statue. In this collection of miniature figures examples of men are not wanting, and there are instances of old soldiers, officials, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... certainly is very pleasant to contemplate. All these conditions were united in Paolo. He was the easiest; pleasantest creature to talk with that one could ask for a companion. His southern vivacity, his amusing English, his simplicity and openness, made him friends everywhere. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... at all by his presence, or even relieved of any portion of your solicitude. But I determined to tell you all about it as soon as it was over, and I was fondly imagining that you would praise me for my sagacity in managing the business as I did, and also especially for my openness and honesty in explaining all to you at last. But instead of that, it seems you think I did wrong; so that where I expected compliments and praise, I get only censure and condemnation; and I do not know what I ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott

... still the consolations of uncertainty; it is probable that such a one would have extorted from me a belief in her love for five minutes every day. Not for an instant could that delusion live with Elsa's openness. Yet perhaps she would learn the trick, and I watch her mastery of it in the growth. But at least she should not ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... never refused to admit the ability of Peel's Administration. He described it as powerful, popular, and successful. He recognised the honesty of his great rival, his openness of mind, the courage which he displayed in turning a deaf ear to the croakers in his own Cabinet, and the genuine concern which he manifested for the unredressed grievances of the people. In his 'Recollections' he lays stress on the fact that Sir Robert Peel did not hesitate, when he thought ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... understand it; and if he giveth us not leave to understand it so, he saith nothing to the purpose neither, for it will be objected by some-But can he fetch me off, though I have done as David, as Solomon, as Peter, or the like? It must be answered, Yes. The openness of the terms ANY MAN, the indefiniteness of the word SIN, doth naturally allow us to take him in the largest sense; besides, he brings in this saying as the chief, most apt, and fittest to relieve one crushed down to death ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... traits of the Creator. Some of my ancestors considered themselves such. But I do say that men are coming more and more to think of Him as having no mysteries. We have no evidence, as the old hymn declares, that He loves to move in a mysterious way. The entire openness of Nature and of the Creator—these are the new ways of thinking. They will be the only ways of thinking in the future unless civilization sinks again into darkness. What we call secrets and mysteries of the universe ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... Weston was, however, not so frequent as formerly; and Alethea herself could not but remark that, while Mr. Mohun seemed to desire to become more intimate, his daughters were more backward in making appointments with her. This was chiefly remarkable in Emily and Jane. Lilias was the same in openness, earnestness, and affection; but there was either a languor about her spirits or they were too much excited, and her talk was more of novels, and less of poor children than formerly. The constant visits to Devereux Castle prevented Emily and Lilias from being ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... put on her most attractive gown, a dress sometimes gray and sometimes cloudy blues and greens, itself like the sea, and finding in Katie a more mysterious quality than her openness would usually suggest. Feeling called upon to make some account to herself for dressing more than occasion would seem to demand, she told herself that she must get the poor old thing worn out and ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... answer him as clearly as I am able, and with great openness: I have nothing to conceal. In the year sixty-five, being in a very private station, far enough from any line of business, and not having the honor of a seat in this House, it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to the then ministry, by the intervention of a common friend, to become ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... openness, said, "I suspect that you will find very little to remark in the pashalic of Silistria. It is an agricultural country, and the majority of the inhabitants are Turks. The Rayahs are very peaceable, and pay very few taxes, considering the agricultural wealth of the country. ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... paved. Some people are thus hardened even to good. They lose capacity for impressions. {117} Some people are even gospel-hardened. They have heard so much talk about religion that it runs off the pavement of their lives into the gutter. Thus the first demand of the sower is for receptivity, for openness of mind, for responsiveness. Give God a chance, says the parable. His seed gets no fair opportunity in a life which is like a trafficking high-road. Keep the soil of life soft, its sympathy tender, its imagination free, or else you lose the elementary quality of ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... Clarence, by all his services in deserting Warwick, had never been able to regain the King's friendship, which he had forfeited by his former confederacy with that nobleman. He was still regarded at court as a man of a dangerous and a fickle character; and the imprudent openness and violence of his temper, though they rendered him much less dangerous, tended extremely to multiply his enemies and to incense them against him. Among others, he had had the misfortune to give displeasure to the Queen herself, as well as to his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... wild doings, there was an instant and determined revolt on the part of his wife. Elsie fought desperately to maintain her position as head of the family. By way of humiliating her husband she flirted with an openness which won for her a reputation by no means to be envied, and she wantonly trampled on his wishes. Given a husband, however, with an iron will and a fibre not too fine, with a good temper and yet with a certain ruthlessness in asserting his sway, and there is ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... gave us an account how civilly he had been used; how they had treated him with all imaginable frankness and openness; that they had not only given him the full value of his spices and other goods which he carried, in gold, by good weight, but had loaded the vessel again with such goods as he knew we were willing to trade ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... one could hear his joyous, confiding voice, and the expressions of unaffected and earnest interest with which he threw himself into every subject which fairly engaged his attention or affections, without feeling drawn with all the cords of the heart to the noble boy. There was such a thorough openness and freedom in all that he did and said, yet without recklessness and without indifference to the feelings of others. And when, through thoughtlessness or forgetfulness, as was not unfrequently the case, he happened to find ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... two weeks this photographic car had done good execution on the community. The artist himself appeared friendly, which greatly assisted his trade, openness to familiarity being a prime virtue in all rustic neighborhoods. Every youngster who came to the store after groceries, with a bag slung over the horse's neck in which to carry them, gave pap no peace until means were furnished for a rosy-cheeked tin-type of himself in a pink, green or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... know—sort of lost at coming into my bit of land at Mingham. But you——" Harry could see his head turn as he looked over the demesne of Blent and struggled to give some expression to the thoughts which his companion's position suggested. The circumstances of this meeting made for sincerity and openness; they were always Bob's characteristics. Harry too was in such a mood that he liked Bob to stay and talk ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... And yet nothing is surer than that he shaped his life and did his work absolutely indifferent to either praise or blame; in fact, that he deliberately did that which he knew would bring him dispraise. The candor and openness of the man's nature would not allow him to conceal or feign anything. If he loved praise, why should he not be frank about it? Did he not lay claim to the vices and vanities of men also? At its worst, Whitman's vanity was but the foible ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... of Academies, has pronounced a glowing panegyric on the French Academy as a high court of letters, and a rallying-point for educated opinion, as asserting the authority of a master in matters of tone and taste. To it he attributes in a great measure that thoroughness, that openness of mind, that absence of vulgarity which he finds everywhere in French literature; and to the want of a similar institution in England he traces that eccentricity, that provincial spirit, that coarseness which, as he thinks, are barely compensated by English genius. Thus, too, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Allah placed the Soul (life ?) in Adam, the dry clay became flesh and bone and the First Man, waking to life, sneezed and ejaculated "Alhamdolillah;" whereto Gabriel replied, "Allah have mercy upon thee, O Adam!" Mohammed, who liked sneezing because accompanied by lightness of body and openness of pores, said of it, "If a man sneeze or eructate and say 'Alhamdolillah' he averts seventy diseases of which the least is leprosy" (Juzm); also "If one of you sneeze, let him exclaim, 'Alhamdolillah,' and let those around salute him in return with, 'Allah have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... different conditions. With respect to the development of powers devoted to coping with specific scientific and economic problems we may say the child should be growing in manhood. With respect to sympathetic curiosity, unbiassed responsiveness, and openness of mind, we may say that the adult should ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot

... Perfidiousness to be a tollerable Fault in a Case of Necessity: being of the same Opinion with the Lord Bacon, (who was not so Precise as Learned) That [the best Composition and Temperature is, to have openness in Fame and Opinion, Secrecy in habit, Dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign if there be no remedy,] Essay 6. pag. 31. Therefore he kept fair with all, saving his open or unreconcileable Enemies. He carried it with such Dissimulation, that Anabaptists, Independants, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... completely finished, and sent to the bookseller, his great work on Logic; the labor of many years of a singularly subtle, patient and comprehensive mind. It will be our chief speculative monument of this age. Mill and I could not meet above two or three times; but it was with the openness and freshness of school-boy friends, though our friendship only dates ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle



Words linked to "Openness" :   sociableness, willingness, receptivity, spatial arrangement, spacing, open, receptiveness, patency, closeness, sociability



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