"Plain-spoken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have got it at last!" he cried. "It's pleasant to understand each other, isn't it? You see, I'm a plain-spoken fellow; I don't wish to give offence. If there's one thing more than another I pride myself on, it's my indulgence for human frailty. But, in my position here, I'm obliged to be careful. Upon my soul, I can't continue my acquaintance with a man who—oh, come! come! don't look as if you didn't understand ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... a very sharp sense of the humorous, and in his enjoyment of a comical situation he liked company. His heart was stirred to put his expedition in its true light before this man who was so honest and plain-spoken. "Mr. Sadler," said he, "if you will take it as a piece of confidential information, and not intended for the general ear, I will tell you what sort of a holiday my wife and I are taking. We are on a wedding-journey." And then he told the story ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour. 'The sign of a Grand Seigneur being landlord,' says the vehement plain-spoken Arthur Young, 'are wastes, landes, deserts, ling: go to his residence, you will find it in the middle of a forest, peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields are scenes of pitiable management, as ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... though he had renounced all his titles, all his feudal rights, and had assumed, as far as possible, the manners of a blunt, plain-spoken man, was still, next to the king, in the enjoyment of the richest revenue in France. He could by no possibility place himself upon a social equality with his boot-black. He manifested no disposition to divide his vast possessions with the mob in Paris, and to send his wife to work with the washer-women, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... vigorous, plain-spoken, was the only woman within a dozen miles, and it was not long before Mrs. Roberts hated Mrs. Cummins as Jeremiah hated Babylon. For Mrs. Cummins was bent on spreading "culture," and Mrs. Roberts was determined that by no seeming acquiescence should ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... license for reprinting it is never issued.[121] The censors were not paid; and in addition to being overworked and over-burdened with responsibility, they were rarely men of adequate learning. In a letter from Bartolommeo de Valverde, chaplain to Philip II., under date 1584, we read plain-spoken complaints against these subordinates.[122] 'Unacquainted with literature, they discharge the function of condemning books they cannot understand. Without knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, and animated by a prejudiced ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "Uncle Terry is an estimable type of hardy fisherman, honest and plain-spoken, but manifesting in his phrasing a subtle sarcasm ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... presence the provincial committee suddenly stiffened and grew strong. All correspondence with Tryon was cut off, the Tories were repressed, and on Long Island steps were taken to root out "these abominable pests of society," as the commander-in-chief called them in his plain-spoken way. Then forts were built, soldiers energetically recruited and drilled, arrangements made for prisoners, and despite all the present cares anxious thought was given to the Canada campaign, and ideas and expeditions, orders, suggestions, and encouragement were freely furnished ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... false reverence that fears to speak plainly of God. It seeks by holding back some things, and speaking of others with very carefully thought-out phrase, to bolster up God's side. True love has two marked traits: it is always plain-spoken in telling all the truth when it should be known; and it is always reverential. It can't be otherwise. The bluntest words on the lips combine with the deepest reverence of spirit. God doesn't need to be defended. The plain truth ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... So when a nation becomes poor and bankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws of political economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruin is God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... efforts he could, sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... can't bear none of your lip service. I'm a plain-spoken woman, that's what I am, and I like other people's tongues to be as plain as mine. My name's Miss Louisa Coleman; but I'm generally called Miss Coleman,—I'm only called ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... had listened open-mouthed to this plain-spoken homily. When he came to himself, he darted forward, and aimed a blow with his fist, which just failed to strike the back of his visitor, who was in the act ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... public-house habitue, are entirely dominated by the cathedral clique. He may have been a bad authority, this doddering old septuagenarian, mouthing his pint of beer, but he entertained us during the half-hour of a passing shower with many plain-spoken opinions about many things, including subjects as wide ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... against the Normans, calling out, "Down with the traitors!" The Normans were greatly offended, and, having retired to their tents, they held a council together, and ended by making him the following plain-spoken address: ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... is not a translation. In the publications of the Irish Ossianic poetry we see what that poetry really was—rude, homely, plain-spoken, leagues removed from the nebulous ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady
... again. The commander had learned at Funchal that His Highness was a villanously bad character, and he positively refused to permit him to visit or to meet the lady passengers on board his ship. He was an honest, upright, and plain-spoken man. He stated that the Pacha was not a suitable person to associate with ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... run a rum-hole, Lem," said the plain-spoken doctor, "don't expect a woman in her condition to help you ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... pastor, Everard Bogardus, in the same ship with a schoolmaster—the first in the colony—and the new governor, Van Twiller. The governor was incompetent and corrupt, and the minister was faithful and plain-spoken; what could result but conflict? During Van Twiller's five years of mismanagement, nevertheless, the church emerged from the mill-loft and was installed in a barn-like meeting-house of wood. During the equally wretched administration of Kieft, the governor, listening to the reproaches of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... more puzzled when he hears the worthy Jansenist declare that it is no heresy to hold that “all the just have always the power of obeying the Divine commandments.” Confounded by such a reply, he felt that he had been too plain-spoken with both Jansenist and Molinist. {120} There must be something more in this dispute than he understood; and if not, there was no reason why there should not now be peace in the Church and the Sorbonne. He returned ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... a Baltic-Province German. And when his Majesty is here in town does he dare trust his personal safety to a Russian? Not at all; he relies on Von Wahl, prefect of St. Petersburg, another German." And so this plain-spoken American youth went on with a full catalogue of leading Baltic-Province Germans in positions of the highest responsibility, finally saying, "You know as well as I that if the salvation of the Emperor depended on any one ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... Her plain-spoken friend never realized how much she was hurting Ruth by telling her this. Ruth's pride kept her up, nor would she make further overtures toward friendship with her classmates. She determined, during those first ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... "break asunder the cable of the Church in Christ; and they talk it to their husbands, to their daughters, and to their neighbors, and say that they have not seen a week's happiness since they became acquainted with that law, or since their husbands took a second wife."* The coarse and plain-spoken H. C. Kimball, in a discourse in the Tabernacle, November 9, 1856, thus defined the duty of polygamous wives, "It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and, unless she is, I would not ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... in London at this time of the year?" said this plain-spoken old lady. "Your fancy about getting into the army? Nonsense, man! don't tell me such a tale as that. There's a woman in the case: a Trelyon never puts himself so much about from any other cause. To stop in town at this time of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... something to have leave from headquarters. Merle hurried away and lost no time in collecting the junior boarders, who came to her meeting out of sheer curiosity to see what she could possibly want with them. For once blunt plain-spoken Merle was silver-tongued, and advocated her club with all the ingenuity of which ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... the opportunity to mumble some words of regret for what had happened, and to express a hope that nothing more would be said about the matter, while his mother was sympathetic and Elsa most charming and attentive. Now, as he knew well, all this would be changed. Foy, the exuberant, unrefined, plain-spoken, nerve-shaking Foy, would become the centre of attention, and overwhelm them with long stories of very dull exploits, while Martin, that brutal bull of a man who was only fit to draw a cart, would stand behind and play the part of chorus, saying "Ja" and "Neen" at proper intervals. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Girls, three in number, were left alone in New York City. Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while Margy, just out of business school, obtained a position as secretary and Rose, plain-spoken and business like, took what she called a "job" in a department store. The experiences of these girls make fascinating reading—life in the great metropolis is thrilling and full of strange adventures ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... statue, and altar at Therapnae and elsewhere. Various examples of her miraculous intervention were cited among the Greeks. The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her, conjointly with her sister Clytemnestra, in a tone of rude and plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripides and Lycophron afterward, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches against her except from her own lips. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... break through into clear sunlight as a purpose no longer to be confused with the gratification of personal fancies, the impossible realization of boys' and girls' dreams of bliss, or the need of older people for companionship or money. The plain-spoken marriage services of the vernacular Churches will no longer be abbreviated and half suppressed as indelicate. The sober decency, earnestness and authority of their declaration of the real purpose of marriage ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... the mines was limited in that day, and we felt that we had found a real thesaurus in this old man of unique mold. His visits were refreshing to us, and his plain-spoken ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... prostitution. I dont mean ever to be married, I can tell you, Marian. I would rather die than sell myself forever to a man, and stand in a church before a lot of people whilst George or somebody read out that cynically plain-spoken marriage ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... reader to subscribe at once to The Tyre Times, and thus aid to sustain the paper of a gentleman and a scholar, who was, as editors usually are, a plain-spoken, sensible man, conscious of the presence of talent in his sanctum, by 'sympathetic attraction.' The editor of the Times looked into the circumstances of my case with an experienced and kindly eye, and then said ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... your mother a hump," returned the plain-spoken and matter-of-fact hunter. "Nobody shud never go to promise wot they can't perform. I've lived, off an' on, nigh forty years now, and I've obsarved them wot promises most always does least; so if you'll take the advice of an oldish hunter, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... I restrained my words, eager to proclaim my service, yet comprehending instantly that I dare not even trust this plain-spoken girl with the truth. She respected the men, sympathized with the sacrifices of Washington's little army, contrasted all they endured with the profligacy of the English and Hessian troops, and yet remained loyal to the King's cause. Even as ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... erected in front of it. No wonder that the emperor expresses himself dissatisfied with a "prospect" of so lugubrious a character. An English sailor seated on a neighbouring gun, delivers the sentiments of the day after the plain-spoken fashion of his countrymen. This design, which is by no means in the artist's usual style, was etched by him from the design of some one whose name ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... carried out on a platter the dissevered head of that good man, while all the banqueters shouted, and thought it a grand joke, that, in such a brief and easy way, they had freed themselves from such a plain-spoken, troublesome minister. ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... simple truth, as they always were, even before I lived in more plain-spoken countries than this," said the Comte. "And now let me ask your kindness for this little eldest girl of mine—the eldest child that I have here—you know Georges is ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... her plain-spoken, cheery self, intent only on making the most of this genial hour in the autumn of her life, and yet she was watching over a hope that she felt might make her last days her best days. She was almost praying that the fair girl whom she had so learned to love might become the solace of her age, and ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... mean that a friend should always be what is called plain-spoken. Many take advantage of what they call a true interest in our welfare, in order to rub gall into our wounds. The man who boasts of his frankness and of his hatred of flattery, is usually not frank—but only brutal. A true friend will never needlessly hurt, but also will never let ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... her son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff, plain-spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor could she, with her strong common-sense, attach all the importance which ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forms of the Christian religion, the Atlantic coast presented a bizarre mixture. In the main, New England was emphatically Calvinistic and sternly Puritanical; Virginia, proudly Episcopalian (Anglican); and Maryland, partly Roman Catholic. Plain-spoken Quakers in Pennsylvania, Presbyterians and Baptists in New Jersey, and German Lutherans in Carolina added ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... passes in your mind, friend Griggs," he said, not in the least disconcerted at my attack. "You want me to speak plainly to you, because you think you are a plain-spoken, clear-headed man of science yourself. Very well, I will. I think you might yourself become a brother some day, if you would. But you will not now, neither will in the future. Yet you understand some little distant inkling ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... herself in consequence the wrath of the elder, and instant pursuit, which ended in the disappearance of her chosen hero, and a forced endurance of the tyrant's presence, till it appeared that she would have to "marry him to get rid of him," as our plain-spoken grandmothers characterized a similar situation in ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... depressed and unhappy fugitive. In the closing scene of Joachim's reign, when the disbanded Neapolitans, badly led, and in some instances deserted by generals who should never have held the rank, fled before the hosts of Austria, the sympathy and friendship of his plain-spoken follower were amongst the last and best consolations of the falling monarch. Very bitter must have been Murat's reflections at that moment; the conviction was forced upon him that his misfortunes resulted chiefly from his own want of judgment and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... at home with them, though I had to bear with roughnesses from one or two of the more venerable dames, which were not quite proper to good breeding. Old Lady Kane, great-aunt of the Marquis of Edbury, was particularly my tormentor, through her plain-spoken comments on my father's legal suit; for I had to listen to her without wincing, and agree in her general contempt of the Georges, and foil her queries coolly, when I should have liked to perform Jorian DeWitt's expressed wish to 'squeeze the acid out of her in one grip, and toss her to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no doubt of our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive charges," said the plain-spoken English soldier already quoted, who came out with Leicester, "if every one of us will put our minds to go forward without making a miserable gain by the wars. A man may see, by this little progress journey, what this long peace hath wrought in us. We are weary of the war before we come where ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... secret. It needs a special temperament for this—one that is able to inspire fear in whomsoever it may be necessary to hold in check—a temperament with sufficient self-reliance and strength to play an open game steadily through to the end. Since Durnovo's plain-spoken threat had been uttered Gordon had thought of little else, and it was well known that Jocelyn's influence was all that prevented him from taking hopelessly to drink. When away from her at the sub-factories it is to be feared that he gave way to the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... rather sticky champagne, which was the first item of the meal to reach us. But a certain sense of unfitness or disinclination stopped me after a few sentences, and I did not again refer to my new friends; though I had been thinking a good deal of Constance Grey and her plain-faced, plain-spoken aunt. I felt strangely out of key with my environment in that glaring place, and the strains of an overloud orchestra, when they came crashing through the buzz of talk and laughter, and the clatter of glass and silver, were rather a relief to me as a substitute for conversation. ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... was the answer. "That is to say, I'll fix things up with the plain-spoken Britisher, and take your acknowledgment in return for his written statement that he has no claim on you. I know how to handle that breed of cattle, and mayn't press you for the money until you can ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... answer, De Lacy, who had hitherto remained on his knee, rose gently, and assuming a seat beside the Lady Eveline, continued to press his suit,—not, indeed, in the language of passion, but of a plain-spoken man, eagerly urging a proposal on which his happiness depended. The vision of the miraculous image was, it may be supposed, uppermost in the mind of Eveline, who, tied down by the solemn vow she had made on that occasion, felt herself constrained to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... most consolation was the true one; and since no traveller ever returns from that bourne, so near and yet so far, to advise us of the truth or falsity of these ultra-mundane comforts, we seem compelled to hesitate more than ever before we forsake that sturdy and plain-spoken guide called reason, whom we as confidently follow in the region of religion as in the business of everyday life. The Society for Psychical Research has some remarkable evidence to offer, apparently establishing to physical demonstration that the man [Transcriber's ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... a very plain-spoken young gentleman," said the Prince sternly. "You draw your sword to protect your mother, and now I suppose if your father is not pardoned you will turn rebel and draw it again to ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... "Co." has been reading Ferrers Court, by JOHN STRANGE WINTER, author of Bootle's Baby and a number of other novelettes of like kind. He says that he is getting just the least bit tired of Mignon, and the plain-spoken girls, and the rest of them. By the way, he observes that it seems to be the fashion, judging from the pages of Ferrers Court, in what he may call "Service Suckles," to talk continually of a largely advertising lady's tailor. If this custom spreads, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... breed, one among a flock kept for stock-jobbing purposes, by a certain great capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the plain-spoken intelligence, "Louis Philippe est mort!" In a minute after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was buying stock ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... T. well. He commanded a brigade in our garrison town of R. And a kindly chief he was, clear-minded, frank, and plain-spoken. I soon made up my mind to go to him and see what help I could get to enable me to rejoin my regiment. It would be a pleasure, ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... the present day when an awkward guest has broken a valuable piece of china. He muttered something about the machines having been long preserved in the Imperial family, as being made on the model of those which guarded the throne of the wise King of Israel; to which the blunt plain-spoken Count expressed his doubt in reply, whether the wisest prince in the world ever condescended to frighten his subjects or guests by the mimic roarings of a wooden lion. "If," said he, "I too hastily took it for a living creature, I have had the worst, by damaging ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... mean to be so rough," Thorpe declared, with spontaneous contrition. Upon the instant, however, he perceived the danger that advantage might be taken of his softness. "I'm a plain-spoken man," he went on, with a hardening voice, "and people must take me as they find me. All I said was, in substance, that I intended to be of service to you—and that that ought to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... to dispose of her histrionic remains! Think of it, ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The wonder of it is that she ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... I deserved whipping for fancying he could mean anything serious. And so, between a kind of fear and a good deal of pride, I tried, as I have said, to avoid any private talk with him; and I succeeded pretty well. But Harry's blunt, plain-spoken ways overmatched ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... eyes, a somewhat stately walk, and a full beard, which he was the first in the society to wear. He was extremely industrious, and never wasted even a minute; knew admirably how to use every spare moment. He was cheerful, kindly, talkative; plain-spoken when he had to find fault; not very enthusiastic, but somewhat dry and very practical. In his earlier years, in Germany, he was witty; and to the last he was ready and apt in speech. His conversation centered always upon religion and the conduct of life; and no matter with whom he was speaking, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff |
