Delicate Quotes - Page 26

• It is not the delicate neurotic person who is prone to angina, but the robust, the vigorous in mind and body, the keen and ambitious man, the indicator of whose engines is always at full speed ahead.

  William Osler

  Men, Mind, Ambitious

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• The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  War, Transition, Offensive

  Napoleon Bonaparte (2012). “Napoleon's Military Maxims”, p.26, Courier Corporation

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• The pursuit of art is a delicate balance between influence and self-assertiveness. As self-realized artists, we all have different levels of tolerance for this mystery. Influence is like Scotch; it's good to know your personal limit.

  Robert Genn

  Art, Self, Scotch

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• Etching will suggest subtle variations of tone, the most delicate shadings, all with black lines, which, as far as lines go, are unsurpassed for sheer beauty.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Black, Etching, Variation

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• Aerial perspective has nothing to do with line, but concerns tones and colours, by the delicate manipulation of which an artist can suggest infinite distance.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Distance, Artist, Perspective

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• There can be no question of selecting in any direction, but of penetrating the whole cosmic law of rhythms, forces and material that are the real world, from the ugliest to the most beautiful, everything that has character and expression, from the crudest and most brutal to the gentlest and most delicate; everything that speaks to us in its capacity as life.

  Asger Jorn

  Beautiful, Real, Character

  Asger Jorn, Per Hovdenakk, Stine Høholt, Arken museum for moderne kunst (Ishøj, Denmark), Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst (Amstelveen, Netherlands) (2002). “Asger Jorn”

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• One of the things called forth by the Imagist movement in poetry was neatness; and when we say keenness, we mean neatness. A knife that is keen is also a knife that cuts neatly; it isn't brutal. Sharpness is different from brutality. Brutality is clumsy: it is wide - it has a lot of fist and thumb and no delicate finger.

  Eli Siegel

  Mean, Cutting, Knives

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• The great artist is a formulation of the greatest intelligence: he is the recipient of sensations which are the most delicate and consequently the most invisible expressions of the brain.

  Paul Gauguin

  Artist, Expression, Brain

  Paul Gauguin (1955). “An Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings & Sculpture [by] Gauguin”

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• In the end, science as we know it has two basic types of practitioners. One is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ. The second kind of observer is the extreme reductionist who is so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle, to intangibles not worth troubling one's head about.

  Loren Eiseley

  Eye, Science, Men

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• I don't really find girls to be any more dramatic or delicate than boys; I've known plenty of little boys who've had miserable breakdowns over things... in fact, I was one of them!

  Harry Connick, Jr.

  Girl, Boys, Littles

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• The corals do not look much worn, but still appear to have been dead. There are some delicate shells of molluscs from depths beyond 500 fathoms, where they were certainly living.

  Edward Forbes

  Depth, Looks, Shells

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• The precision of hisskill places his work beyond the tentative and the experimental stage. He is continually searching and exploring both himself and his surroundings. and in this exploration of the realm of places, people and things, contrasts and relationships, Callahan is no respecter of conventional technical formula or code. His delicate sense of pattern is an integral part of his photography and not a thing by itself.

  Edward Steichen

  Photography, People, Patterns

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• Many Canadian nationalists harbour the bizarre fear that should we ever reject royalty, we would instantly mutate into Americans, as though the Canadian sense of self is so frail and delicate a bud, that the only thing stopping it from being swallowed whole by the US is an English lady in a funny hat.

  Will Ferguson

  Humorous, Self, Stopping

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• Plants, in a state of nature, are always warring with one another, contending for the monopoly of the soil,-the stronger ejecting the weaker,-the more vigorous overgrowing and killing the more delicate. Every modification of climate, every disturbance of the soil, every interference with the existing vegetation of an area, favours some species at the expense of others.

  Joseph Dalton Hooker

  Science, Stronger, Climate

  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Thomson (1855). “Introductory essay to the Flora Indica: including preliminary observations on the study of Indian botany; a summary of the labours of Indian botanists; a sketch of the meteorology of India; outlines of the physical geography and botany of the provinces of India: With 2 Maps. By J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson. Reprinted from the "Flora Indica"”, p.41

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• To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of like to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? Oh, reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts--this whispering "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.

  Anne Bronte

  Sex, Flower, Light

  Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte (2014). “The Complete Novels Of The Bronte Sisters: Seven-Book Bundle”, p.244, Harper Collins

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• I think that when two people are able to weave that kind of invisible thread of understanding and sympathy between each other, that delicate web, they should not risk tearing it. It is too rare, and it lasts too short a time at best.

  M. F. K. Fisher

  Love, Thinking, Two

  M. F. K. Fisher, Joan Reardon (2004). “The Art of Eating”, p.424, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.

  Edmond Rostand

  Hero, Faces, Danger

  Edmond Rostand, Howard Thayer Kingsbury (2004). “Cyrano de Bergerac”, p.205, Simon and Schuster

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• America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.

  Malcolm X

  White, America, Forever

  Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.292, Ballantine Books

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• If we deny our awesome challenge; turn our backs on the living universe, and forsake our cosmic destiny, we will commit a crime of unutterable magnitude. Mankind alone has the power to carry out this fundamental change in the universe. Our failure would lead to consequences unthinkable. This is perhaps the first and only chance the universe will ever have to awaken from its long night and live. We are the caretakers of this delicate spark of Life. To let it flicker and die through ignorance, neglect, or lack of imagination is a horror too great to contemplate.

  Marshall Savage

  Ignorance, Moon, Night

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• I know men are delicate origami creatures who need women to unfold them, hold them when they cry. But I am tired of being your savior and I am tired of telling you why.

  Ani DiFranco

  Tired, Sadness, Men

  Song: Origami, Album: Educated Guess

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• It's been important to me to be a good activist, a good thinker, a good musician, a good singer, and a good entertainer. You can't do it all, but I have walked those delicate lines as best I know how.

  Holly Near

  Important, Musician, Lines

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• To make fun of a person to his face is a brutal way of amusing one's self; be delicate and cunning, and keep your laugh in your sleeve, lest you frighten away your game.

  Gelett Burgess

  Fun, Self, Games

  Gelett Burgess (1916). “The Romance of the Commonplace”

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• No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether. I was always tempted to resuscitate such men by my own joyousness or luminosity.When I break glasses in a night club, as the Russians do, when my unconscious breaks out in wild rebellions, it is against life which has crippled these idealistic, romantic men. I respect these men, cold, pure, faithful, devoted, moral, delicate, sensitive, and unequal to life, more than I respect the tough-minded ones who return three blows to one received, who kill those who hurt them.

  Anais Nin

  Hurt, Blow, Night

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• And is an ending always bad? it asked. Must not all things, even worlds, someday end?"There is no need to hasten that end," Vin said. "No reason to force it."All things are subject to their own nature, Vin, Ruin said, seeming to flow around her. She could feel its touch upon her - wet and delicate, like mist. You cannot blame me for being what I am. Without me, nothing would end. Nothing could end. And therefore, nothing could grow. I am life. Would you fight life itself?

  Brandon Sanderson

  Fighting, Delicate Life, Needs

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• We must imbue our children with principles of the higher-self, principles which see all people as true equals, and above all, which are sensitive to the delicate and fragile balance of life.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Children, Self, Delicate Life

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