"Free-spoken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... itself, and never hoarded it. It is, indeed, something to Nash's honour, that he died poor. He delighted, in the poverty of his mind, to display his great thick-set person to the most advantage; he was as vain as any fop, without the affectation of that character, for he was always blunt and free-spoken, but, as long as he had enough to satisfy his vanity, he cared nothing for mere wealth. He had generosity, though he neglected the precept about the right hand and the left, and showed some ostentation in his charities. When a poor ruined fellow at his elbow saw ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... ratio of 50 births to 32 deaths. Long habits of hardship and activity doubtless explain the contrast with Marquesan figures. But the Paumotuan displays, besides, a certain concern for health and the rudiments of a sanitary discipline. Public talk with these free-spoken people plays the part of the Contagious Diseases Act; incomers to fresh islands anxiously inquire if all be well; and syphilis, when contracted, is successfully treated with indigenous herbs. Like their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rivals, and bitterly resented the privilege which they received from Alexander IV of hearing confessions throughout the world. Not less strong was the hostility of the monastic orders which is often expressed in Matthew Paris's free-spoken abuse of them. They were accused of terrorising dying men out of their possessions, of laxity in the confessional, of absolving their friends too easily, of overweening ambition and restless meddlesomeness. They were violent against heretics and enemies of the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... criticism, there should be uttered a welcome; not grudging, not envious of an overshadowing reputation, not over-curious in searching for qualifications to abate its warmth, not carefully taming down its enthusiasm to tepid formalisms; but full-souled and free-spoken, such as all noble works ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... to describe them, but when he began to consider them he found himself soothed and strengthened. Far away to the other side of the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and grey medieval courts, they appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken men with whom one could be at ease; incomparably more subtle in emotion than the people here. They gave him, certainly, what no woman could give him, not Helen even. Warming at the thought of them, he went on to ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... decidedly his companion was more and more confidential—that if luxury is corrupting, Mrs. Bread's conservative habits were already relaxed by the spiritual comfort of this preconcerted interview, in a remarkable locality, with a free-spoken millionaire. All his native shrewdness admonished him that his part was simply to let her take her time—let the charm of the occasion work. So he said nothing; he only looked at her kindly. Mrs. ...
— The American • Henry James
... before the Darkness that knows all, Aye, dread the dead still chambers, lest one day The stones find voice, and all be finished! Nay, Friends, 'tis for this I die; lest I stand there Having shamed my husband and the babes I bare. In ancient Athens they shall some day dwell, My babes, free men, free-spoken, honourable, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... only waited a suitable opportunity to give adequate expression to their abhorrence of Mackenzie and his doctrines. As for Sir Peregrine, he was ready enough to cooeperate with his supporters in any proceeding for the suppression of this free-spoken and most objectionable little Radical, who dared to wag his plebeian tongue against the son-in-law of a Duke. An occasion for the first overt act of hostility was afforded by certain rites connected with the erection of the monument on Queenston Heights to the memory ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... reasonably be thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot, or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and, among sober handicraftsmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have some better distinction, before he ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Deity's: this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms.—What would have been said, had any free-spoken people discovered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... would have nothing to do with it"—Dolly was always free-spoken with the servants, which made her very popular with some of them—"he has heavier duty than he can discharge. But two hours and a half is hopeless; we must even ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Rome, is abundant. The pontificate of Sixtus V., from 1585 to 1590, was full of material for his wit. The only man in Rome who did not tremble under the rod with which this hard old monk ruled his people and the Church was the free-spoken marble jester. The very morning after the election of Sixtus, Pasquin appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reply. "I'm sure I'm very sorry, ma'am, very indeed; for Mr Oldfield was a most kind, free-spoken gentleman; and ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... free-spoken man called Shackleby, who said that he had been sent by his colleagues who managed the Industrial Enterprise Company, called upon Thurston and Savine together in their city offices. He came straight to the point after the fashion of ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... original manuscript, correcting Casanova's vigorous, but at times incorrect, and often somewhat Italian, French according to his own notions of elegant writing, suppressing passages which seemed too free-spoken from the point of view of morals and of politics, and altering the names of some of the persons referred to, or replacing those names by initials. This revised text was published in twelve volumes, the first two in 1826, the third and fourth in 1828, the fifth to the eighth in 1832, and ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... to become a brook, and into which dirt of every sort was emptied by every householder. There were no causeways; and there were frequent holes of uncertain depth, filled with thick mud. Ownerless dogs, and owned but equally free-spoken pigs, roamed the streets at their own sweet will, and were not wont to make way for the human passengers; while if a cart were met in the narrow street, it was necessary for the pedestrian to squeeze himself into the smallest compass possible against the wall, if he wished to preserve ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional "Surely, surely!"—from which it might be inferred that she would have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both the farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs. Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended, as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... month or two he was the laughing-stock of the place; but wot was worse to 'im than that was that he'd made enemies of all the old ladies. Some of 'em was free-spoken women, and 'e couldn't sleep for thinking of the 'arm ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... as well as strength is held to be an essential element of legislation, opinion must be secured an unrestricted organ. Superfluity of debate may often be inconvenient to a minister, and sometimes perhaps even distasteful to the community; but criticizing such a security for justice and liberty as a free-spoken parliament is like quarrelling with the weather because there is too much rain or too much sunshine. The casual inconvenience should be forgotten in the permanent blessing. Acting upon these false imputations a committee was even appointed, two years ago, of the most eminent members ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... conditions from which country folk must raise themselves is of value if rural sociology is a real thing. There is far too much theorising about the countryman and the countrywoman, far too much idealising of them and far too much rating of them as clods. If country people of all lands are free-spoken let us be neither hypercritical nor hypocritical. A big gap seems to yawn between the paddy-field peasant in his breech clout and the immaculate clubman, but what difference is there between the savour of the average Bon song and of many a smoking-room ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Mr. Vincent, "I was deceived in the character of Mrs. Freke. I thought her a dashing, free-spoken, free-hearted sort of eccentric person, who would make a staunch friend and a jolly companion. As a mistress, or a wife, no man of any taste could think of her. Compare that woman now with one ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... the wildness and wickedness of his past life—so far as that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho' free-spoken and frank in all common matters—you, honour'd sir, know with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... for none of these things; though I am sure when he left you so poorly provided for in this world, he behoved to have given you a good hold of the hope of a better;—besides that, it makes us contented with a very humble lot here below. I am, maybe, too free-spoken, Miss Jean, but ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence |
