"Forthright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Won you in a game of drawing poker. Another man would have done as well, but the creature was keen for you. Great strength of character. Determined sort. Hope you won't think I didn't play soundly, but it's not a forthright game. Think they're bluffing when they aren't. When they are you mayn't think it. So far as hiding one's intentions, it's a most rottenly immoral game. Low, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... money, thank God!" Mrs. Sheridan said, in her forthright voice. "Lord knows where it all comes from, these days, but the children always have plenty," she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, it's a thermos ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... it was so, it was so. For better or for worse, that was the kind of woman she had become, with the simple, forthright physical life subordinate, humble; like a pleasant, lovable child playing among the strong, full-grown, thought-freighted interests and richly varied sympathies and half-impersonal joys and sorrows which had ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... it and turning it over, said, "If I rub it, will its slave appear?" Replied Ma'aruf, "Yes. Rub it and he will appear to thee, and do thou divert thyself with the sight of him." Thereupon the Wazir rubbed the ring and behold forthright appeared the Jinni and said, "Adsum, at thy service, O my lord! Ask and it shall be given to thee. Wilt thou ruin a city or raise a capital or kill a king? Whatso thou seekest, I will do for thee, sans fail." The Wazir pointed to Ma'aruf and said, "Take up ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... cheerily he talked Amid the ceaseless tumult of the guns, How, when the word was given, he stood erect, Sprang from the trench and, shouting to his men, Led them forthright to where the sullen foe Waited their coming; and his brain took fire, And all was exultation and a high Heroic ardour and a pulse of joy. "Forward!" his cry rang out, and all his men Thundered behind him with their eyes ablaze, "Forward ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... vile world! By Allah, life is naught but one great wrong." Presently he added, "Do not thwart me, O my brother, in what I propose;" and the other answered, "I will not." So he said, "Let us up as we are and depart forthright hence, for we have no concern with Kingship, and let us overwander Allah's earth, worshipping the Almighty till we find some one to whom the like calamity hath happened; and if we find none then will death be more welcome to us than life." So the two brothers ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... me, O auspicious King, that Ajib sent orders to assemble the troops, who marched forthright to Cufa. Meanwhile, Gharib, being troubled for Ajib's escape, despatched in quest of him a thousand braves, who dispersed on all sides and sought him a day and a Night, but found no trace of him; so they returned and told Gharib, who called for his brother Sahim, but found ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... then. He posed as "a plain, blunt man," but back of the forthright handgrip, the bluff directness of manner, Frank scented a massive and wily self-interest. He respected the man for his power, his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... which gave such striking freshness, such compelling strength, to the simple, forthright directness, the unaffected earnestness and modesty of the Message brought us by the Canadian preachers. The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who ever heard the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found resentment impossible after George Stairs's little account of ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... goeth right along a by-way that is in the forest, and goeth to a little hold of robber-knights that lay out of the way, where was a damsel that kept watch over the hold. The robbers had another hold where was the damsel where the passing knights are deceived and entrapped. The dwarf cometh forthright to the damsel, and saith: "Now shall we see what you will do, for see, here cometh the knight that hanged your uncle grid your three ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... shared with the two girls. She didn't know whether Dick was worth millions or whether he was running a cabaret because he was hard up, and she cared less. She always followed her heart. Fancy the situation: Dick the uncatchable, and Paula who never flirted. They must have sprung forthright into each other's arms, for inside the week it was all arranged, and Dick made his call on me, as if my decision meant anything one way or ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Tong, thou'rt grown presumptuous and over-venturesome, methinks. But since life thou dost hold so cheap prepare ye for death forthright!" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... drowned," said Grattan, who was of a forthright manner of speech. "He's a business-like fellow, Svensen. He'd have turned up in time for the show if he could, even after a ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies called to me; the susurrus of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... bide, sure-guarded, when the restless lightnings wake, In the boom of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap, Forthright, accoutred, accepting—alert from the walls of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon—so at the need ye shall send, Men, not children, or servants, tempered and taught to ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... They rode forthright at one another. Their lances brake at the first blows. But they drew swords in a fury and rushed at one another. Le Beau Disconus smote the giant's shield so that it fell from him; but Maugis in turn slew Le Beau Disconus's steed with a great blow on its head. Le Beau Disconus said nought, but ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... well found," he said. "I owe you one thing that I value little, my life; and one that I can never pay you for, this victory.—Catesby, if I had ten such captains as Sir Richard, I would march forthright on London.—But now, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Varus to his flame, As I from Forum idling came. Forthright some whorelet judged I it Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit, When hied we thither, mid us three 5 Fell various talk, as how might be Bithynia now, and how it fared, And if some coin I made or spared. "There was no cause" (I soothly said) "The Praetors or the Cohort made 10 Thence ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... huge, sublime, To front oblivion; and because I failed, And all my rhymes were gawky, shambling camels, Or else obscene, blue-buttocked apes, I'm doomed To lackey it for things such as I've made, Till one of them crunches my backbone with his teeth, Or knocks my wind out with a forthright kick Clean in the midriff, crumpling up in death The hunched and stunted body that was me— John, the apostle of the Perfect Form! Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book— As you would say: and a bad book at that, A maundering, kiss-mammy book—The Hunch-back's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... am indebted to the Rev. J. Howard Melish, D.D. whose forthright denunciations of political corruption in Cincinnati were further ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... with a swagger and a droop to his eyelid and something deliciously sinister in his lean, firm jaw and saucy black eye—a boy like Jack Cody, for instance, for whom a whole world of short-skirted femininity divided itself naturally into two classes: just girls—and Split Madigan. But that a forthright, practical, severe person like herself should be made ridiculous by Crosby's worship, and that Split, her arch-enemy, should be there to hear her adorer make his sexless declaration, was too much! Even a Madigan could not bear ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war. Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric, and a policy that is adequately funded and sustainable. The President and Congress must work together. Our leaders must be candid and forthright with the American people in order to win ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... arrival which they had counted on since this was the only way Jim Kendric knew of getting back among old friends and old surroundings. There was nothing subtle about him; in all things he was open and forthright and tempestuous. In a man's hardened and buffeted body he had kept the heart of ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... turning to this New Testament, therefore, with a curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church sounding strangely in his ears even when his ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... less, so much less. Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)—so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 80 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... calm, Was now the master of opinion: all Drew to him. Even the hunchback Burleigh smiled With half-ironic admiration now, As in the presence of the Queen they met Amid the sweeping splendours of her court, A cynic smile that seemed to say, "I, too, Would fain regain that forthright heart of fire; Yet statesmanship is but a smoother name For the superior cunning which ensures Victory." And the Queen, too, knowing her strength And weakness, though her woman's heart leaped out To courage, yet with woman's craft preferred The subtler strength of Burleigh; for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... The statements in the Veda about life after death exclude all notions of hell. The early visions are simple, poetic and cheerful. The bodies of the dead are burned and their ashes are consigned to earth. But this is viewed merely as a symbolic act of preparation—cooking it is called forthright—for another life of joy. The righteous forefathers of old who died before, they have found another good place. Especially Yama, the first mortal, has gone to the great rivers on high; he has searched out, like a pioneer, the way for all his descendants: "He went before and found a ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... blessings, whereas I sometimes give him curses; and their purpose is to tell you explicitly why I asked you to meet me in the Pass the other evening, since events, on which I here offer no comment, made it impossible for us to have any plain, forthright talk. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... in her pride's despite One strenuous viol's inspirer seemed to throw A message from his string to her below, Which said: "I claim thee as my own forthright!" ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... the same kind of strength that has always been present in Swinburne's plays, but hitherto draped elaborately, and often more than half concealed in the draperies. The outline of every play has been hard, sharp, firmly drawn; the characters always forthright and unwavering; there has always been a real precision in the main drift of the speeches; but this is the first time in which the outlines have been left to show themselves in all their sharpness. Development ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... next morning while still in bed, and its forthright assault made her shiver. She did not attempt to deceive herself. She acknowledged the singular power of this young man to shake her, to change her course of action. From the first she acknowledged something almost terrifying in the appeal of his eyes, a power which he seemed unconscious of. His ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... to his mother's rede and going out forthright to the Divan, committed the manage of the realm into the hands of certain old men of understanding and experience; save that he did this only after Bassora had been ruined, inasmuch as he turned not from his folly till he had spent and squandered all the treasures ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... charge which has ever been urged against revolutionists. Revolution is the child of speculation. The men of the seventeenth century are discoverers in politics. Their mark is a wider empire than that of Vasco da Gama and his king, a realm more wondrous than that of Aeetes. But Da Gama did not steer forthright to the Indies, nor Jason to the Colchian strand, though each knew clearly the goal he sought, just as Wentworth and Selden, Falkland and Montrose, Eliot and Milton, knew the State they were steering for, though each may have wavered in his own mind as to the course, and at last parted ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... to the back of one of the two broncos waiting with drooped heads before the porch. He admired this frank, forthright sister who blazed so handsomely into rage. He would have fought for her, even though he pretended to make a joke ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... short stature, broad-shouldered and muscular. Liked by his friends and colleagues for his frankness, there was a salt savour in his forthright speech—he never learned to play the courtier. His manners were not polished, a certain rusticity clung to him always, but his honesty was appreciated and he held positions of trust. Affectionate, slow—with the Dutch slowness praised ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... move elsewhere. Now the water which quickens the verdure of the canals moves from the pole down to the equator as the season advances. This it does then irrespective of gravity. No natural force propels it, and the inference is forthright and inevitable that it is artificially helped to its end. There seems to be no escape from this deduction. Water only flows downhill, and there is no such thing as downhill on a surface already in fluid equilibrium. A few canals might ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Jan was, as a matter of fact, unique among hounds. Apart from this, no hound of his size or splendid development had ever before been seen upon Regina station platform. The people of the West are a forthright, plain-spoken, and enterprising folk, and before he left the station Captain Arnutt was offered fifty dollars for Jan. Nothing damped by the captain's smiling refusal of his ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... idea—the miserable fancy rather—has terribly corrupted the preaching of the gospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered. Unable to believe in the forgiveness of their Father in heaven, imagining him not at liberty to forgive, or incapable of forgiving forthright; not really believing him God our Saviour, but a God bound, either in his own nature or by a law above him and compulsory upon him, to exact some recompense or satisfaction for sin, a multitude of teaching men ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... role notwithstanding the sympathetic reading of Arturo Toscanini. Khovanchtchina is even more rugged, more Russian. Hearing it after Tschaikovsky's charming, but weak, setting of Eugen Onegin, the forthright and characteristic qualities of Moussorgsky are set in higher relief. All the old rhetoric goes by the board, and sentiment, in our sense of the word, is not drawn upon too heavily. Stravinsky is a new man not to be slighted, nor are Kodaly and Bartok. I mention only the names ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... and set sail, and ceased not sailing from island to island and from sea to sea, with a fair wind and a favouring, till we arrived at Bassorah safe and sound. I made no stay there, but freighted another vessel and, transferring my goods to her, set out forthright for Baghdad-city, where I arrived in safety, and entering my quarter and repairing to my house, foregathered with my family and friends and familiars who laid up my goods in my warehouses. When my people ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... swiftly and surely out of pained and useless speculation into forthright doing. From surety of what he had seen he passed to doubt, to uneasiness about himself: for if he could not look at a fair-haired woman without seeing Myra's face, then he must be going mad. He must know, beyond ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... up broad heaven the bright morning-star Who rouseth to their toils from slumber sweet The binders of the sheaf, then his last sleep Unclasped the warrior-son of her who brings Light to the world, the Child of Mists of Night. Now swelled his mighty heart with eagerness To battle with the foe forthright. And Dawn With most reluctant feet began to climb Heaven's broad highway. Then did the Trojans gird Their battle-harness on; then armed themselves The Aethiop men, and all the mingled tribes Of those war-helpers that ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... this trustee as one likely to give trouble in the future, and hence to be handled with care. He was a forthright, upstanding, lantern-jawed man of the people, by the name of James E. Winter. A contractor by profession and a former member of the city council, he represented the city on the board of trustees. For the city appropriated seventy-five hundred dollars ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... warmth-creating impression to Englishmen of the "forthright yet friendly" tone of British diplomats when dealing with Seward. So also did Russell's instruction of August 8, not yet received by Lyons when he took the stage at Washington. Yet there is a possibility that Lyons was in fact merely playing his part as Seward had asked him to ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... for him. "Arthur sate full still; one while he was wan, and in hue exceeding pale; one while he was red, and was moved in heart. When it all brake forth, it was good that he spake; thus said he then, forthright, Arthur, the noble knight: 'Lord Christ, God's Son, be to us now in aid, that I may in life hold God's laws.'" [18] But in general Layamon's expansions of Wace are merely slight additions or modifications, sufficient in number, however, to go far in doubling the size of the volume. His great ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... began to weaken in resolution. It was not an easy thing to sever the connection which had been so strangely established between herself and this good friend, who seemed each moment to be less the simple mountaineer she had once believed him to be. Western he was, forthright and rough hewn, but he had shown himself a man in every emergency—a candid, strong man. Her throat filled with emotion, but she ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... bowling, floored with sand, for soaking vp the rayne, closed with two thorne hedges, and banked with sweete senting flowers: It wideneth to a sufficient breadth, for the march of fiue or sixe in front, and extendeth, to not much lesse, then halfe a London mile: neyther doth it lead wearisomely forthright, but yeeldeth varied, & yet, not ouer-busie turnings, as the grounds oportunity affoordeth; which aduantage encreaseth the prospect, and is conuerted on the foreside, into platformes, for the planting of Ordinance, and the walkers sitting; and on ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... him even a long while? . . . He deserved it. . . . But ah, no! She was under a vow never to be other than forthright with him; and the truth was, his coming ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... all around And seeing none heeding, went straightway Whereas the finger's shadow lay, And with his knife about the place A little circle did he trace; Then home he turned with throbbing head, And forthright gat him to his bed, And slept until the night was late And few men stirred from gate to gate. So when at midnight he did wake, Pickaxe and shovel did he take, And, going to that now silent square, He found the mark his ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... tremendous. To-day, in Dr Smith's "Classical Dictionary," Origen rubs shoulders with Orpheus and Orcus; Tertullian reposes cheek by jowl with Terpsichore. But we are not concerned, here, with what happened in the end. We are concerned with what these forthright Christian fighters had in their minds—to trample out the old literature because of the false religion. Milton understood this, and was thinking of it when he wrote of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... That was her honest, forthright, Winnebago Wisconsin self talking. But up in her apartment the other Fanny Brandeis, the calculating, ambitious, determined woman, said: "Now why did I say that! I never want to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber |
