Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.

The line juxtaposes blunt honesty (“call a spade a spade”) with a deliberate exception grounded in compassion. It suggests that plain speech is generally virtuous, but that social labels can become gratuitously cruel when aimed at people already burdened by hardship. By insisting on “lady,” the speaker reframes politeness not as euphemism or hypocrisy, but as a small ethical act—choosing language that preserves dignity. The quote’s force comes from its tension: it endorses candor while warning that “truth-telling” can be a pretext for contempt. In that sense, it argues for a moral hierarchy in speech: accuracy matters, but kindness matters more when accuracy serves only to wound.