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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



... The brutal rule of Josef STALIN (1928-53) strengthened Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into 15 independent republics. Since then, Russia has struggled in its efforts to build a democratic political ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... is remarkably communicative. With adroitness he may be pumped of any thing. His openness is from character, not from affectation. An intimacy with him may, on this account, be ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... discourse with her some hidden secret of love. A faint sense of some infinite beauty and nearness came over him which, if he could win it, would put the whole of life into a different plane. Not a friendly combination, but an absolute openness and nakedness of soul, nothing hidden, nothing kept back, everything confessed and admitted, a passing of two streams of life ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under any just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company, and openness, as may too hastily expose them that are examined; and that there may nothing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God; but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard may ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... my disposition, so often and so frankly chronicled in these Confessions—the openness to be led whither any one might take the trouble to conduct me—the easy indifference to assume any character which might be pressed upon me, by chance, accident, or design, assisted by my share of three flasks of champagne, induced me first to listen ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... conduct.—The other day, in the cause of humanity, he made use of a degree of address, which I admire—and mean to point out to you, as one of the few instances of address which do credit to the abilities of the man, without taking away from that confidence in his openness of heart, which is the true basis of ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... 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, Renan, one ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... one whose generous openness and manly virtues rendered him dear to all who had the privilege of his acquaintance. He was a native of somewhere near Arbroath in Scotland, but his accent did ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... visit from M. Manuel. We had occasionally met at the houses of mutual friends, and lived on terms of good understanding without positive intimacy. He evidently came to propose closer acquaintanceship, with an openness in which perhaps the somewhat restricted character of his mind was as much displayed as the firmness of his temperament; he passed at once from compliments to confidence, and, after congratulating me on my opposition, opened to me the full bearing of his own. He ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... ventured to add, 'she is known to Turenne's people here, who have once stolen her away. Were she brought to your Majesty with any degree of openness, they would learn it, and know that ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... understanding, or showing character. She found that Mr. Salisbury appeared to her quite a different person when conversing with Lord Colambre. Lord Colambre, with that ardent thirst for knowledge which it is always agreeable to gratify, had an air of openness and generosity, a frankness, a warmth of manner, which, with good breeding, but with something beyond it and superior to its established forms, irresistibly won the confidence and attracted the affection of those with whom he conversed. ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... university perfection, this writer of religious treatises, this speaker of ecclesiastical speeches, had been like a little child in her hands; she had turned him inside out, and read his very heart as she might have done that of a young girl. She could not but despise him for his facile openness, and yet she liked him too. It was a novelty to her, a new trait in a man's character. She felt also that she could never so completely make a fool of him as she did of the Slopes and the Thornes. She felt that she could never induce Mr ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... three R's and the formal studies connected with them, shuts him out from the vital in literature and history, and deprives him of his right to contact with what is best in architecture, music, sculpture, and picture, it is hopeless to expect definite results in the training of sympathetic openness ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey

... greatness," he writes, "can be shut up in qualities, it will be found to consist in courage and in openness of mind and soul. These qualities may not seem at first to be so potent. But see what growth there is in them. The education of a man of open mind is never ended. Then with openness of soul a man sees some way into all other souls ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... no such evil stamp. There seemed nothing vicious in them. True, there were lines, but they were the lines of decision and firmness. It seemed, rather, a frank and open countenance, which frankness or openness was enhanced by the fact that he was smooth-shaven. I could hardly believe—until the next incident occurred—that it was the face of a man who could behave as he ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... dropped their air of conscious superiority and presently began to treat him as an equal; a change which he reported to his father with evident satisfaction. He wrote frequently and with much openness to that father, telling of his duties and pleasures and asking advice in any perplexity as freely as he could have asked it of any one near his own age, and with full confidence in the wisdom and the affection for him ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... to dare a competition with the numerous editions of his works already in circulation; and we shall be surprised if this convenient travelling edition does not in a great degree supersede the use of the large octavo works, which have little advantage in size and openness of type, and are much inferior in the ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... in Mara's policy and action, and these led to some very important experiences. A false pride had at first prompted, or at least induced her to acquiesce in secrecy; now an honest pride led her to openness in all her efforts to obtain a livelihood. She would volunteer no information, but would simply go on in an unhesitating manner, let the consequences be ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... and saw Whitwell standing on the grass in front of the house, beside the flagstaff. He suffered Westover to make the first advances toward the renewal of their acquaintance, but when he was sure of his friendly intention he responded with a cordial openness which the painter had fancied wanting in his children. Whitwell had not changed much. The most noticeable difference was the compact phalanx of new teeth which had replaced the staggering veterans of former days, and which displayed ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... implies, that 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 knew anything ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to paint Felipa during these first weeks, but those eyes of hers always evaded me. They were, as I have said before, yellow—that is, they were brown with yellow lights—and they stared at you with the most inflexible openness. The child had the full-curved, half-open mouth of the tropics, and a low Greek forehead. "Why isn't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... arch-master in the arts of intrigue and betrayal, whose duplicity as if at times intolerable to his self-knowledge worked itself off in bursts of cynical openness. "I did hurry on the formation of the proscribing commission and took its presidency. And do you know why? Simply from fear that if I did not take it quickly into my hands my own name would head the list of the proscribed. Such are ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad

... to follow a course I did not originally mean to take.' After saying no more for a few moments, she added, in a tone of sudden openness, a richer tincture creeping up her cheek, 'I want to put a question to you boldly—not exactly a question—a thought. Have you considered whether the relations between us which have lately prevailed are—are the best ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... frank openness of her pure nature, she sprung forward to meet him, with both her fair hands extended, and the ingenuous blood rising faintly to her ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... having no interest in a matter that concerned only an unfortunate and helpless man, spoke with that boldness and openness which truth inspires. In the end, the monarch was convinced of the innocence of the unfortunate Kaskas, and ordered the chief of the eunuchs to set him at liberty, conduct him to the bath, and, after having clothed him decently, to bring ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... had the good fortune to find a place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... adverted, and in most of the passages of his life. There was a want of strong resolution, and an absence of concentration so marked, that he seldom read completely through even those books which most deeply interested him—there was a nervous susceptibility, and an openness to new impressions, which caused him as it were to dwell upon every passage he did read, to linger over its beauties, to start objections to its theories, to argue them out, and to develop to its fullest every suggestive thought; and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... Saturday evening, when my beloved father came to Chesington, in full health, charming spirits, and all kindness, openness, and entertainment. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... intimacy of communication, there will be no question as to what I am to talk about to Him; I shall not be able to keep silent as to anything that interests me. And we are not right with God unless we have come to the point that entire openness of speech marks our communications with Him, and that, as naturally as men, when they come home from business, like to tell their wives and children what has happened to them since they left home in the morning, so naturally we talk to our Friend about everything that concerns ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... and science—why love me? What has my friendship given you but anxiety and pain? Must it now heap dangers on you? Separate yourself from me; we are no longer of the same nature. You see courts have corrupted me. I have no longer openness, no longer goodness. I meditate the ruin of a man; I can deceive a friend. Forget me, scorn me. I am not worthy of one of your thoughts; how should I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... before long to see the absurdity of which he was guilty. And having found out how keen the boy's point of honour was, he worked kindly upon that kindly feeling with great skill, discoursing him over their wine after dinner, and pointing out to Pen the necessity of a perfect uprightness and openness in all his dealings, and entreating that his communications with his interesting young friend (as the Major politely called Miss Fotheringay) should be carried on with the knowledge, if not approbation, of Mrs. Pendennis. "After all, Pen," the Major said, with ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... self. You must of necessity be advanced so far back in true nature and simplicity of manners, by these three years' residence in the East, that I shall look upon you as so many years younger than you was, so much nearer innocence (that is truth) and infancy (that is openness). I expect to see your soul as much thinner drest than your body, and that you have left off as weary and cumbersome a great many damned European habits. Without offense to your modesty be it spoken, I have a burning desire to see your soul stark ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... be observed, may not infer that this quarter was confined to legal residents. The lawyers were the most conspicuous and influential occupants; but they had for neighbors people of higher quality, who, attracted to the square by its openness, or the convenience of its site, or the proximity of the law colleges, made it their place of abode in London. Such names as those of the Earl of Lindsey and the Earl of Sandwich in the seventeenth, and of the Duke of Ancaster and the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... difficult): and if your mind, from any accident, or from persuasion of friends, should then have received alteration; you may still be happy in each other. I will therefore only thank you for that openness of heart, which must set free the heart of my son—Had you had the least lurking inclination to coquetry, and could have taken pride in conquests, he might have been an undone man.—We will return ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... facilities to have her hair built high as a grenadier's cap, but she looked none the less commanding. She was, indeed, a radiant creature. Peyton, having never before seen her at her present advantage, opened wide his eyes and stared at her with a wonder whose openness was excused only by the suddenness of ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... sorry she had said anything which might seem meant to discourage his confidence. It occurred to her also that she had been insincere in not telling him at once that she had already been let into the secret of his domestic differences: she felt the same craving as Amherst for absolute openness between them. ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... is consistent with 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 ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... standing where he had left me, with my eyes fixed upon him, vainly endeavouring to find out some means of appeasing him. Nothing but openness and frankness could reinstate me in his favour: and how could I be open and frank? What could I tell him that would justify my intimacy with Henry? or account for the agitation which his words had caused me? Nothing; nothing short of the truth; and that—oh! how wearied I was ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... cheerful 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 ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... when he first sets out in the world, make an impression the most salutary and indelible. When his sons first quitted the paternal roof, they were all completely at liberty; he never took any indirect means to watch over or to influence them; he treated them on all occasions with entire openness and confidence. In their tastes and pursuits, joys and sorrows, they were sure of their father's sympathy; in all difficulties or disappointments, they applied to him, as their best friend, for counsel, consolation, or support; ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... and threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces for the benefit of nest-building birds, in the great tangled masses of mingled furze and bramble and briar. Birds were abundant there—all those kinds that love the common's openness, and the rough, thorny vegetation that flourishes on it. But the village—or rather, the large open space occupied by it, formed the headquarters and centre of a paradise of birds (as I soon began to think it), for the cottages and houses were widely separated, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... brought you here because I have something to tell you that he"—her face quivered—"should have been told. When you spoke a little while ago of openness and candour—when you said that you would never mislead or deceive me for your own advantage, that I should know the worst of you together with the best—you held up before me, quite unknowingly, an example that showed me—that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... have been the guardian, not the slanderer of my reputation,—who, as a woman, ought to have respected the delicacy of female honour, and, as a relation, should have protected mine! But, to utter falsehoods on so nice a subject—to repay the openness, and, I may say with honest pride, the propriety of my conduct, with slanders—required a depravity of heart, such as I could scarcely have believed existed, such as I weep to find in a relation. O! what a contrast does her character present ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... give a certain piquant, wide-awake expression to his head, that have fastened upon him a title so incongruous. The nest of the desert-lover is a slight depression in the barren earth, nothing more; and the eggs harmonize with their surroundings in color. The whole is concealed by its very openness, and as hard to find, as the bobolink's cradle in the trackless ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... first to suggest a tete-a-tete in the obscurity of a remote hut. Although more than ever fascinated by the unusual beauty of Mademoiselle Vincart, he was astonished, and occasionally shocked, by the audacity and openness of her action toward him. Once more the spirit of doubt took possession of him, and he questioned whether this freedom of manners was to be attributed to innocence or effrontery. After the pleasant friendliness of the midday ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... stronger weapon than its mace, and no better officer than its serjeant-at-arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy; an anxious care of public money; an openness, approaching towards facility, to public complaint; these seem to be the true characteristics of a house of commons. But an addressing house of commons, and a petitioning nation; a house of commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with ministers, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... another;" but he does not even try to do any one of these things. He has thrown a calcium light upon one spot, revealing some defects, and many eyes are for a time drawn towards it. His feint has created a sensation, and brought an important subject up to a grade of familiarity and openness where it can be talked of and examined, and I closed the book with a great sense of obligation on behalf ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... two years' standing will corroborate our statement as to the openness of the field of legal advocacy. How often has he seen cause after cause "set down," "reserved," or "put off," because counsel are engaged elsewhere? How often has he heard the same advocate in four or five causes in the same week, in the same court, changing positions ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... An air of openness and affability increased the favourable impression derived from this handsome and dignified exterior. Yet a skilful physiognomist would have been less satisfied with the countenance on the second than ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... was contented with having frightened me. In truth I had been sufficiently so, not to make me change my opinion, or oblige me to deny it, but to repress completely that remnant of republican habit which had led me the year before, to speak with too much openness. ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... 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

... openness of manner is considered by the Spaniards to be the most desirable point of good breeding; and when any one possesses that quality, he is pretty sure to be well received ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... Russell 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 ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... herding us together into our original ranks for a final shaking down. The captain disappeared, but I hoped he was to be ours, for though I had had but sidewise glimpses of him, there seemed a fine frank openness about him ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... last day of 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 skilled ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... been ugly in his person. His portrait by Reynolds gives to features, ill-formed and gross, an expression of intelligence and benignity. In the latter part of life, his character appears to have undergone a greater change, from its primitive openness and good nature, than mere time and experience of the world should have wrought in it. Perhaps this was nothing more than a slight perversion which he had contracted in the school of Warburton. What was a coarse arrogance in the master himself, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... ever met with. The fowls too were exceeding good, and were likewise run down with little trouble; for they could scarce fly further than an hundred yards at a flight, and even that fatigued them so much, that they could not readily rise again; so that, aided by the openness of the woods, we could at all times furnish ourselves with whatever number we wanted. Besides the cattle and the poultry, we found here abundance of wild hogs: These were most excellent food; but as they were a very fierce animal, we were obliged either to shoot them, or to hunt them with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... is uprightness; that is, that rectitude of spirit and of heart, which makes one seek for truth in everything, and desire it, without deceiving one's self or others. It is, finally, sincerity or good faith; which is to say, that frankness, that openness of heart, tempered by self-reliance, which excludes all feints and all disguising, as much in speech ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... To what? "I have been speaking to him with the greatest openness," he said to himself with perfect truth. "What else could I tell him? That I have undertaken to carry a message to that brute Ziemianitch? Establish a false complicity and destroy what chance of safety I have ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... was answered today in such a way that the Lord may have another opportunity, to prevent our going thither, if it be not of Him. Especially we will not move a single stone out of the way in our own strength, and much less still be guilty of a want of openness and plainness, nor would we wish by such means to ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller

... which it seems impossible to see anything but boyhood; as 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 conceals ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... up his mind, wisely enough, to speak with much openness and some tact also, if possible. "It was on the Glow Worm River at the Clip Claw Hills. I came into your father's camp one evening in the autumn, hungry and tired and knocked about. I was given ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 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, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... considerably in one direction; and the hyperbolic curve, that never returns into itself at all, but has, on the other hand, a course which sets outwards each way for ever. The parabolic curve, as it is called, is a line partaking of the closeness of the ellipse on the one hand, and the openness of the hyperbola on the other. A parabola is an ellipse passing into a hyperbola; or, in other words, it is a part of an ellipse whose length, compared with its breadth, is too great to be estimated, and is consequently deemed to be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... "I've decided openness is better between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... perhaps rather a large inference to conclude that 'the very architecture of the Palaces of Knossos and Phaestos may testify to the power of the democracy';[*] but at least the thoughtfulness with which the comfort of the people visiting the palace was provided for, and the general openness and lack of any jealous seclusion, testified to by the whole style of the buildings, suggest that the relations between the Kings of the House of Minos and their subjects were much more human and pleasant than those obtaining in most ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... course of this memorable interview. It sealed for ever the allegiance of the youth to his self-chosen leader. He had prepared Sheridan, and through him Fox and Bouverie, for this change of front. The openness, the charm, the self-effacing patriotism of the Minister thenceforth drew him as by an irresistible magnet. The brilliance and joviality of Fox and Sheridan counted as nothing against the national impulse which the master now set in motion and the pupil was destined to carry to ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... government in that day, there were no recognized principles but those of expediency. Even in our own times, expediency rather than right too often seems to guide nations. It is not just and fair, therefore, to expect from a sovereign, in Queen Elizabeth's time, that openness and fairness which are the result only of a higher national civilization. What would be blots on government to-day were not deemed blots in the sixteenth century. Elizabeth must be judged by the standard of her age, not of ours, in her ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... and openness described by the Temple woman is confirmed by Hindus well acquainted with Temple affairs. "All the Temple women are married to the gods. In former times the marriages were conducted upon a grand scale, but now they are clandestinely performed ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... 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 for; and that afterwards they had resolved to bring the great ship out ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... imperceptibly away, and he was led off without a single voice to witness his integrity. He now found one of his most frequent visitants accusing him of treason, in hopes of sharing his confiscation; yet, unpatronized and unsupported, he cleared himself by the openness of innocence, and the consistence of truth; he was dismissed with honour, and his accuser perished ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... middle of July. At that time there was practically nothing happening at the front, but the sickness was great. Amara, by reason of its openness, was a little fresher than Basra, but the temperature was high. It was 125 degrees in the shade on ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne

... finished writer; because of its force, openness, and seriousness, her style might be termed a masculine one; she wrote to persuade and, as a rule, succeeded. Her grave defect seemed to be in her inspirations, which were always superior to her ideas, and in her sentiments, which she invariably ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... least of all to be trusted at these diversions, who are most desirous to go to them.—Of this I am now fully convinced."—"Well, Sir, I long to hear more particulars of this story: for this generous openness, now the affair is over, cannot but be grateful to me, as it shews me you have no reserve, and tends to convince me, that the lady was less blameable than I apprehended: for I love, for the honour of my sex, to find ladies ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... political 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 ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... principles of our Government. We decline alliances as adverse to our peace. We desire commercial relations on equal terms, being ever willing to give a fair equivalent for advantages received. We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with openness and sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to establish that mutual frankness which is as beneficial in the dealings of nations as of men. We have no disposition and we disclaim all right to meddle in disputes, whether internal or foreign, ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... reading, because it combines such fantastic and inventive fables as surpass even the happiest efforts of our nonsense writers with a beautiful openness of mind which we see oftener in children than in sages,—which is, in fact, the seriousness of those who are truly learning, and are not too conscious of ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... lived as high-blooded men do live, who had laughed by the camp-fire or in the club smoking-room at many a Rabelaisian story and capped it with another, who hated mock modesty, was all for honest openness between man and woman—stood in guilty embarrassment before his own wife's face of innocence. It would have been a sheer impossibility for him to ask her where and how she spent a certain evening last winter; Sibyl, now as ever, was his ideal of chaste womanhood. He scorned ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... students and millionaires throng the studios of Paris and Munich, and our eyes are being daily educated to demand above all things technique, our brains are constantly being worked upon by a stream of art-literature from England. Taste pulls us one way—identity of English speech, with consequent openness to English ideas, pulls us the other. Pictures preach one thing, books another. Our boy who has worked in Paris comes home to try to realize Ruskin. Both influences are too new, and our art is as yet too unsteady, for any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... ignorance was not only humiliating, but perilous, and not more enviable than the reputation of the weather-prophet. He was impatient of the foolish expectations amidst which all work must be carried on, and likely enough to damage himself as much as Mr. Wrench could wish, by an unprofessional openness. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... allowing the influence which literature then exercised upon the people, to be withdrawn altogether from king and his ministers, and to be transferred to the hands of the Parisian ladies and farmers-general, &c. Voltaire, in his well-known verses,[1] admits, with great openness and simplicity, that he attached much importance to the applause of a court, although it neither possessed judgment nor feeling for the merits of a writer, nor for poetical beauties; and he complains at ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... 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 Warren Luce. But, then, I couldn't ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... to rouse, strengthen, and illumine the mind rather than to store it with learning; and the great educational problem has been, and is, how to give to the soul purity of intention, to the conscience steadfastness, and to the mind force, pliability, and openness to light; or in other words, how to bring philosophy and religion to the aid of the will so that the better self shall prevail and each generation introduce its successor to ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... of any such efforts towards blackening his own name, and even after he had learned from bitter experience the rash folly of such a system, there was still, in the openness and over-frankness of his nature, and that indulgence of impulse with which he gave utterance to, if not acted upon, every chance impression of the moment, more than sufficient to bring his character, in all its least favourable lights, before ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... strength and determined will, at the same time declared that both strength and will were constantly employed in the doing of good and the avoidance of evil. No dark furrows of hesitation, cowardice, cunning, meanness or weakness marred the expressive dignity and openness of the Cardinal's countenance,—the very poise of his straight spare figure and the manner in which he moved, silently asserted that inward grace of spirit without which there is no true grace of body,—and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... which all this was said, and such a complete disregard of all conventional restraints and coldnesses, that Nicholas could not resist it. Among men who have any sound and sterling qualities, there is nothing so contagious as pure openness of heart. Nicholas took the infection instantly, and ran over the main points of his little history without reserve: merely suppressing names, and touching as lightly as possible upon his uncle's treatment of Kate. The old man listened with great attention, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... considerable amount of money. For a few years he remained in New York, loaning his capital, for which he always found ready customers, but unfortunately they were not all as ready to pay as to borrow. He lost large sums, and was driven to the conclusion that for a man of his openness of character and confiding honesty, New York was an unprofitable location. The representations of a friend, combined with dissatisfaction with his experience in the commercial metropolis, determined him to ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... 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 ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... deposits are finally made. As to growth in seed and shrub, like produces like. He who sows wheat reaps wheat, not tares. He who plants a grape receives a purple cluster, not a bunch of thorns or thistles. He who sows honor shall reap confidence. He who sows frankness shall reap openness. No Peabody sowing industry and thrift reaps the harvest of indolence and idleness. Theodore Parker, loving knowledge and for it denying himself sleep and exercise, reaped wisdom, and also wan and hollow cheeks, while the iron frame and ruddy cheek are for ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... human being. I strove and I was able. For not only did instinct help me, instinct that had been long asleep, but—I have told you that the stranger was suffering under an obsession, a terrible dominion. This dominion he described to me with an openness that perhaps—that indeed I believe—he would not have shown had I not been a monk. He looked upon me as a being apart, neither man nor woman, a being without sex. I am sure he did. And yet he ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... Practice of Christianity, a book published anonymously some years ago, has shown conclusively how the hardness of men's hearts limits any sort of moral and spiritual revelation. It will be remembered that William James in discussing the openness of minds to truth divided men into the "tough-minded" and the "tender-minded." James was not thinking of moral distinctions: he was merely emphasizing the fact that tough-minded men require a different order of intellectual approach than do the ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... streets as I had seen them. (It is impossible for me to think of them as anything but streets; it would seem as though the rock roof over all would give the appearance of a series of tunnels; but I had always the impression of airiness and openness.) ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... nothing sinister or priceless. Two peculiarities, however, marked it as unusual—the concealment of its mechanism and the brevity of its title. For while the remainder of the exhibits located around it varied in the simplicity or complexity of their design, they were alike in the openness of their construction and detailed explanation of plan and purpose. The great steel box, however, bore merely two words and a date: "Drayle's ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... the mission of the Son and of its fatal issue. Three points are prominent in them. The first is the unique position which Christ here claims, with unwonted openness and decisiveness, as apart from and far above all the prophets. They constitute one order, but He stands alone, sustaining a closer relation to God. They were faithful 'as servants,' but He 'as a Son,' or, as Mark has it, 'the only and beloved Son.' The listeners understood ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... could do would be to cover a vast acreage under glass and apply steam heat. But it would be inadequate, the lacks would still be so great: the confined sense, the sense of suffocation, the atmospheric dimness, the sweaty heat—these would all be there, in place of the Australian openness to the sky, the sunshine and the breeze. Whatever will grow under glass with us will flourish rampantly out of doors in Australia.—[The greatest heat in Victoria, that there is an authoritative record of, was at Sandhurst, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of a rather formal order, and was necessarily limited to an account of the relations between his uncle and himself, and between himself and Augusta. Such as it was, however, he gave it very well, and with a complete openness that appeared to produce a ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... he had been born to an estate of five thousand a year, would have been the most accomplished gentleman of the age. He would have been the delight and envy of the circle in which he moved—would have graced by his manners the liberality flowing from the openness of his heart, would have laughed with the women, have argued with the men, have said good things and written agreeable ones, have taken a hand at piquet or the lead at the harpsichord, and have set and sung his own verses—nugae canorae—with tenderness ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... outside appearance of devotion, and interlarding the most common discourse with phrases of Gospel usage:—if this is religion, then are the disciples of Methodism pious beyond compare. But in real humility of heart, in mildness of temper, in liberality of mind, in purity of thought, in openness and uprightness of conduct in private life, in those practical virtues which are the vital substance of Christianity,—in these are they superior? No. Public observation is against the fact, and the conclusion to which such observation leads is rarely incorrect. * * The very ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... appropriate to 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, unbiased responsiveness, and openness of mind, we may say that the adult should be growing in childlikeness. One statement is as ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... 11/2in. long, and about as much across when open, of a fine purple colour, with a shining satiny appearance; the six transparent petal-like divisions are of uneven form, having short bluntish points; from the openness of the corolla the stamens and style are well exposed, and they are very beautiful. The flowers are produced when the plant is about 6in. or 9in. high, the buds being developed on a rush-like stem, ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... ever heard of; they are there on treaty like their neighbours, and Dr. Knappe himself (in the eyes of justice) is no more than the one-sixth part of the town council of Apia. Lastly, Mr. Klein's innocence stands very clearly proven by the openness with which he declared his presence. For all that, this gentleman lay for a considerable time, watched day and night by German sailors, a prisoner in the American Consulate; even after he had succeeded in running the gauntlet of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... are wanting. The Bordelais, except in the sandy and pine-covered region of the landes, has again become one immense vineyard; but whether it be from the struggle to live, or the lust of prosperity, the people fail to impress the traveller with that communicative openness and joyousness of soul which he would like to find in them, if only that he might not have the vexation of convicting himself of laying up for his ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... you any of even my most unreasonable fancies—your note, which is so characteristically frank and artless, has opened my eyes to my own folly. I must show you that, when I am in my senses, I do you justice. You deserve to be treated with perfect openness; therefore, however humiliating the explanation, I will confess to you the real cause of my displeasure. When you spoke of the heroine of this foolish novel, what you said was so applicable to some part of my own history and character, that I could not help ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... capital, one might suppos?—a huge Hellenistic city well organized for world-commerce.—But let these nomad kings come into it with their horde, and what would become of the ordered civic life? Nomads do not take well to life in great cities; they love the openness of their everlasting plains, and the narrrow streets and high buildings irk their sensibilities. For this reason, and perhaps because they recognised their deficienceies, they shunned Seleucia; and built themselves lumbering straggling ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... intrusted, was no sooner seated on the throne, than he admitted this young man into a full share of his confidence; not with the suspicion of a rival, nor with the fear of an enemy, but with the openness of an acknowledged and kind master towards a trustworthy and devoted servant. The references to (p. 018) him which are found in the authentic records of that time (and they are not a few) all tend to establish this point.[20] Henry immediately gave him, on his coming of age, full and free possession ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... with his untimely jest, he always won by his manly openness and uniform kindliness of nature. He cherished love for all that was around him, both animate and lifeless. Soul and Nature therefore rendered back to him ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... of your line of route for Paris. As soon as the mind attempts to think independently, it is like a kite with the cord cut, and performs a series of darts and frisks, that have the look of wildest liberty till you see it fall flat to earth. The openness of his mind is most ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will. No advantage will be taken on either side; but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely, nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you, I will not compare to a chain, for that rains might rust, or the falling ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... 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 ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... by white palings and a row of laurels. At the back was a bigger garden, and behind that an orchard. It had one recommendation, worth to its tenant all the beauty of a moss-covered manse in Devonshire, and that was its openness. It was on a little sandy hill. For some unaccountable reason there was a patch of sand in that part of the country, delicious, bright, cheerful yellow and brown sand, lifting itself into little cliffs here and there, pierced with the ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... would speak first to the duke of him, and then he should understand his pleasure, and accordingly on the first opportunity he did inform him of the reputation and honesty of the man, and then what he desired, and all he knew of the matter. The duke according to his usual openness and condescension told him, that he was the next day, early, to hunt with the King; that his horses should attend him to Lambeth Bridge, where he would land by five o'Clock in the morning, and if the man attended him there at that ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... usage, to individuals, unless they continuously keep within the limits assigned to them by law; if they do not sacredly apply the fruits of benevolence committed to their charge, to the destined purpose; if the public affairs in their trust are not conducted with openness, impartiality, and candor, instead of designed and secret management; if they become pointedly hostile to those who discern their course, and honestly oppose their measures which are esteemed destructive; if they bear down ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... days Lansing Hertford could will his emotions—or his emotions could will him—to sincerity for the time being. He had ideals and enthusiasms—he changed them often, and, as often, they changed him, but outwardly a frankness and openness were his chief attributes and had held his uncle, through the hope-deferred years, to expect big things ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... now gained of squatter Holt, had imbued me with a keen presentiment, that I was treading upon the edge of a not very distant dilemma. Once, or twice, was I on the point of communicating my business to my travelling companion; and why not? With the openness of an honest heart, had he confided to me the most important, as well as the most painful, secret of his life. Why should I withhold my confidence from him on a subject of comparatively little ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... 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 ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... it a strange thing that the soul within registers its experiences in the body without. God hates secrecy and loves openness. He hath ordained that nature and man shall publish their secret lives. Each seed and germ hath an instinctive tendency toward self-revelation. Every rosebud aches with a desire to unroll its petals and exhibit its scarlet secret. Not a single piece of coal but ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... subject in a former letter, and I considered those last verses as only the identical thoughts better clothed; either way (in prose or verse) such poetry must be welcome to me. I love them as I love the Confessions of Rousseau, and for the same reason: the same frankness, the same openness of heart, the same disclosure of all the most hidden and delicate affections of the mind: they make me proud to be thus esteemed worthy of the place of friend-confessor, brother-confessor, to a man like Coleridge. This last is, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... 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 ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... lovely valley. Let me hope that yours will sometimes rest on the lonely exile, whom nothing could render such, but the command of honour and duty. Do not fear that I mean to involve you in a private correspondence, and let not your father fear it. I could not love you so much, but for the openness and candour of your nature; and I would not that you concealed from Major Bridgenorth one syllable of what I now avow. Respecting other matters, he himself cannot desire the welfare of our common country with more zeal than I do. Differences may occur concerning the mode in which that is to be obtained; ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... continued, 'I have given you pain, I feel it—but understand us—understand that we had no other means of proving our respect to you, of proving that we know how to value your honour and uprightness. Openness, complete openness with any other man would have been misplaced; but with you it took the form of duty. We are happy to think our secret ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev



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



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