Finesse Quotes

I learned to approach racing like a game of billiards. If you bash the ball too hard, you get nowhere. As you handle the cue properly, you drive with more finesse.

Juan Manuel Fangio

Games, Racing, Balls

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To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.

Bertolt Brecht

Mean, Process

"Notes on Philosophy", On Politics and Society, 1941.

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It's best if you can do things with a sense of humor and finesse.

Eartha Kitt

Sense Of Humor, Can Do, Ifs

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Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

Thomas B. Macaulay

Mean, Adaptation, Circumstances

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Sounds like the blues are composed of feeling, finesse, and fear.

Billy Gibbons

Music, Feelings, Sound

Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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Il y a deux sortes d'esprits, l'un ge ome trique, et l'autre que l'on peut appeler de finesse. Le premier a des vues lentes, dures et inflexibles; mais le dernier a une souplesse de pense e. There are two kinds of mind, one mathematical, the other what one might call the intuitive. The first takes a slow, firm, inflexible view, but the latter has flexibility of thought.

Blaise Pascal

Views, Two, Mind

c.1653 Discours sur les passions de l'amour (Discourse on the Passions of Love).This is usually attributed to Pascal.

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Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.

Jean Cocteau

Over You, Despair, Force

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It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.

Neil Peart

Sports, Country, Distance

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Nature has given to each conscious being every power she possesses, and one of these abilities is this: just as Nature converts and alters every obstacle and opposition, and fits them into their predestined place, making them a part of herself, so too the rational person is able to finesse every obstacle into an opportunity, and to use it for whatever purpose it may suit.

Marcus Aurelius

Nature, Opportunity, May

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I don't know what my label is. I just think of myself as a plain forward. I like to think I have some finesse to my game, but inside the paint is where men are made. If you can't play there, you should be home with your mama.

Karl Malone

Home, Men, Thinking

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Im a finesse pitcher without the finesse.

David Cone

Pitcher

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Some players are more physical than others, some play with more finesse. Some are just really great all-around players. So you have to change your game.

Oscar Robertson

Basketball, Player, Games

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I don't play with a lot of finesse. I usually play like I'm breaking out of jail!

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Play, Jail

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The music of all the different media of life-memories, images, feeling-tones, poetic-musical connotations of phrasing-is kaleidoscopic and doesn't repeat itself or recur. -People who think they are trapped in a river of regularized and ever-repeating time are merely the victims of their own ordinarizing minds that have elaborated for them a prison-cell of everydayness. The fountains of time, history, life, inspiration, etc. are fresh every instant, if one knows how to grasp them with some finesse: every instant within natural, historical, and personal time is unique.

Kenny Smith

Memories, Philosophy, Inspiration

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The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head

Herman Melville

Games, Long, Sailing

Herman Melville (1962). “Billy Budd, Sailor”, p.83, University of Chicago Press

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The politics of courts are so mean that private people would be ashamed to act in the same way; all is trick and finesse, to which the common cause is sacrificed.

Horatio Nelson

Mean, People, Would Be

Horatio Nelson, Nicholas Harris Nicolas (2011). “The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson”, p.88, Cambridge University Press

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I come from not just a household but a country where the finesse of language, well-balanced sentence, structure, syntax, these things are driven into us, and my parents, bless them, are great custodians of the English language.

Daniel Day-Lewis

Country, Parent, Custodians

"In the name of the father". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. February 28, 2003.

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The American capitalists are richer and stronger than their counterparts in other lands. They are also younger and more ignorant, and therefore more inclined to seek a rough settlement of difficulties without diplomatic subtlety and finesse. All that does not change the fact that American capitalism operates according to the same laws as the others, is confronted with the same fundamental problems, and is headed toward the same catastrophe.

James P. Cannon

Law, Land, Ignorant

"Fascism and The Workers’ Movement". The Militant, www.marxists.org. March-April 1954.

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It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later.

Neil Peart

Sports, Drumming, Touring

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Being a part of the finesse and physicality of box lacrosse has been a great experience for me. I feel that I have learned and improved as an overall lacrosse player. Learning to adapt in tight space while reading defenders and offensive players has been the biggest improvement in my game.

Paul Rabil

Reading, Player, Games

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I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.

Billie Joe Armstrong

Guitar, Acoustics, Instruments

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Digital has obviously changed things a lot, but not all for the better as far as I'm concerned. Of course it's much more convenient and you're getting instant results, but to me it just lacks the finesse of a roll of film and it has a slightly superimposed feel.

Graeme Le Saux

Digital, Film, Results

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To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

Rex Stout

Joy, Detectives, Daring

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I have always been amazed at my contemporaries’ lack of finesse, I whose soul writhed from morning to night, in the mere quest of itself.

Samuel Beckett

Morning, Night, Soul

Samuel Beckett (1995). “The Complete Short Prose, 1929-1989”, p.48, Grove Press

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You spend enough time on set as an actor and it's great when a director was at some point an actor or understands acting. They're able to finesse performances out of you that a lot directors can't get.

Ian Somerhalder

Acting, Enough Time, Directors

"'Vampire Diaries': Ian Somerhalder on His 'Pissed-Off' Character and Whether He'll Direct an Episode (Q&A)". Interview with Philiana Ng, www.hollywoodreporter.com. September 16, 2011.

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