But, thanks to wine-less and democracy, We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!

-Browning, Robert
  'Aristophanes' Apology', stanza1.

A loose, plain, rude writer†I call a spade a spade.

-Burton, Robert pseudonym DemocritusJunior
Anatomy of Melancholy,'Democritus to the Reader'.

Write with your spade, and garden with your pen, Shove your couplets to their long repose. And type your turnips down the field in rows.

-Campbell, (Ignatius) Roy Dunnachie
  'The Georgiad', pt.2.

I hope I've done nothing so monosyllabic as to cheat. A spade is never so merelya spade as the word Spade would imply.

-Fry, C(harles) B(urgess)
  Venus Observed, act1.

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings: Scepter and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

-Shirley,James
  The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses, act1, sc.3.

First, sturdy March with brows full sternly bent, And arme'  d strongly, rode upon a ram, The same which over Hellespontus swam: Yet in his hand a spade he also hent, And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame, Which on the earth he strowe'  d as he went, And filled her womb with fruitful hope of nourishment.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Faerie Queen,'Mutability', canto 7, stanza 32. hent = grasped; ysame = together.

: When I see a spade I call it a spade. : I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
  CECILYGWENDOLEN1895  The Importance of Being Earnest, act 3.