“With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 217.
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William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes
Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 1 “Operation: Cooperation!” (p. 14)

“I call a fig a fig, a spade a spade.”
Unidentified fragment 545 K (K = T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3 vols. (Leipzig 1880/8)), as translated in Menander: The Principal Fragments (1921) by Francis Greenleaf Allinson.
“We believe that failing to call a spade a spade is not scientific.”
Source: Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958), p. 50

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 158 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.

“These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.”
39 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Patanjali, in “The Little Red Book of Yoga Wisdom”, p. 135.

“Sometimes a person has to point fingers, disclose double standards, call a spade a spade.”

Source: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation