Subtle Quotes - Page 33

• There is no violent surface indication of the ecstasy which great thinkers alone enjoy. There is nothing dramatic about it, but there is some subtle light in the eye of the inspired one, or some even more subtle quiet emanation which surrounds the inspired thinker, which tells you that you are in the presence of one who has bridged the gap which separates the mundane world from the world of spirit.

  Walter Russell

  Eye, Light, Secret

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• The contradictory experiments of chemists leave us at liberty to conclude what we please. My conclusion is, that art has not yet invented sufficient aids to enable such subtle bodies [air, light, &c.] to make a well-defined impression on organs as blunt as ours; that it is laudable to encourage investigation but to hold back conclusion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Science, Light

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• Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

  Francis Bacon

  Wise, Witty, Philosophy

  'Essays' (1625) 'Of Studies'

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• I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.

  Carl Sagan

  Wine, Science, Night

  "Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science".

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• A discovery is like falling in love and reaching the top of a mountain after a hard climb all in one, an ecstasy not induced by drugs but by the revelation of a face of nature that no one has seen before and that often turns out to be more subtle and wonderful than anyone had imagined.

  Max Perutz

  Falling In Love, Nature, Science

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• Perspective is a most subtle discovery in mathematical studies, for by means of lines it causes to appear distant that which is near, and large that which is small.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Mean, Science, Discovery

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1965). “Leonardo Da Vinci on Painting: A Lost Book (Libro A)”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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• Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if we´re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Dark, Meditation Practice, Discipline

  Sogyal Rinpoche (2009). “Glimpse After Glimpse: Daily Reflections on Living and Dying”, p.11, Harper Collins

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• Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test-tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind - its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful. Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about.

  Rajneesh

  Beautiful, Self, Hands

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• Each child is poisoned by the society through teaching him ambition. Ambition is a poison far more dangerous than any alcohol can ever be, far more dangerous than marijuana or LSD, because ambition destroys your whole life. It keeps you moving in a false direction. It keeps you imagining, desiring, dreaming, it keeps you wasting your life. Ambition means a subtle creation of the ego, and once the ego is created you are in the grip of darkness. And the whole social structure depends on ambition.

  Rajneesh

  Dream, Children, Moving

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• Will power is nothing but another name of ego power. A man of wisdom has no will, just as he has no mind - because to will means to keep yourself separate from existence. It is a little subtle, but try to feel it. The moment you will it means you are always willing against things as they are. You want them to be some other way.

  Rajneesh

  Mean, Men, Names

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• The path of self-purification is hard and steep. One has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Love, Moving, Passion

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.56, A&C Black

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• Everybody is born with the capacity to enjoy, but not with the art. People think just because they are alive and they breathe and they exist, they know how to enjoy. That is sheer stupidity. Enjoyment is a great art, it is a great discipline. It is as subtle a discipline as music or poetry or painting. It is the greatest creativity.

  Rajneesh

  Art, Creativity, Thinking

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• There is nothing in the animal world, to my mind, more delightful than grown cats at play. They are so swift and light and graceful, so subtle and designing, and yet so richly comic.

  Monica Edwards

  Cat, Animal, Light

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• Death is the opening of a more subtle life. In the flower, it sets free the perfume; in the chrysalis, the butterfly; in man, the soul.

  Juliette Adam

  Death, Flower, Butterfly

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• One of my current pet theories is that the winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course, but of the same stuff.

  Shirley Ann Grau

  Winter, Pet, Stuff

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• How painting surpasses all human works by reason of the subtle possibilities which it contains.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Art, Painting, Reason

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1957). “Notebooks”

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• Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand lightning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested, might have been as bright, but would have also been as quickly passing and perishing, as the lightning.

  Richard Chenevix Trench

  Communication, Lightning, Genius

  Richard Chenevix Trench (1867). “On the Study of Words Lectures Addressed (originally) to the Pupils at the Diocesan Training-school, Winchester by Richard Chenevix Trench”, p.24

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• Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, Military, War

  "Strategy Six Pack".

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• Our intentions - noticed or unnoticed, gross or subtle contribute either to our suffering or to our happiness. Intentions are sometimes called seeds. The garden you grow depends on the seeds you plant and water. Long after a deed is done, the trace or momentum of the intention behind it remains as a seed, conditioning our future happiness or unhappiness.

  Gil Fronsdal

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Garden

  Gil Fronsdal (2008). “The Issue at Hand”, p.61, Insight Meditation Center

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• All things are aggregations of atoms that dance & by their movement produce sound. When the rhythm of the dance changes, the sound it produces also changes... Each atom perpetually sings its song, and the sound at every moment creates dense subtle forms.

  Alexandra David-Neel

  Song, Inspiration, Movement

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• Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!

  Thomas de Quincey

  Keys, Drug, Paradise

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 2 'The Pleasures of Opium'

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• Lack of love for the vegetative, subtle, cthonic, pagan, and sexy aspect of the world means death.

  Alan Watts

  Death, Sexy, Mean

  Alan W. Watts (2011). “Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal”, p.135, Vintage

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• You may be living under the illusion that when God ignites great things in your life, He'll announce it with a big bang. He might. It's more likely that He won't. So stop waiting around for the big bang. Pay attention to the subtle clues and the still, small voice. God lives in that place too.

  Steven Furtick

  Monday, Waiting Around, Voice

  Steven Furtick (2010). “Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible”, p.45, Multnomah

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• Much like a subtle spider which doth sit
  In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;
  If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
  She feels it instantly on every side.

  Sir John Davies

  Garden, Sides, Spiders

  Robert Anderson, Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset (1795). “The Works of the British Poets. With Prefaces”, p.695

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• ...behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.

  Albert Einstein

  Memorable, Law, Connections

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