Subtlety Quotes - Page 4

• O impotence of mind, in body strong! But what is strength without a double share Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome, Proudly secure, yet liable to fall By weakest subtleties, not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears command.

  John Milton

  Strong, Fall, Mind

  1671 Samson Agonistes, l.52-7.

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• In the crowd, herd, or gang, it is a mass-mind that operates-which is to say, a mind without subtlety, a mind without compassion, a mind, finally, uncivilized.

  Robert M. Lindner

  Compassion, Mind, Atheism

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• Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

  Mark Twain

  Guides, Masters, Jokes

  'The Innocents Abroad' (1869) ch. 27

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• The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Reading, Thinking

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.398, Harvard University Press

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• I esteem his understanding and subtlety highly, but I consider that they have been put to ill use in the greater part of his work, where the author studies things of little use or when he builds on the improbable principle of attraction. Writing about Newton's Principia. Huygens had some time earlier indicated he did not believe the theory of universal gravitation, saying it 'appears to me absurd.'

  Christiaan Huygens

  Believe, Writing, Science

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• Now, Friends, deal plainly with yourselves, and let the eternal Light search you, and try you, for the good of your souls. For this will deal plainly with you. It will rip you up, and lay you open, and make all manifest which lodges in you; the secret subtlety of the enemy of your souls, this eternal searcher and trier will make manifest. Therefore all to this come, and by this be searched, and judged, and led and guided. For to this you must stand or fall.

  Margaret Fell

  Rip, Fall, Light

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• When you're doing lots and lots of episodes and you're playing the same character, it's great because you really get to know the character and it becomes a really fast style and you find subtleties in it.

  Misha Collins

  Character, Style, Episodes

  Interview with Tierney Bricker, www.eonline.com. March 23, 2012.

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• It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Discovery, New Work

  Francis Bacon (2012). “The Great Instauration”, p.30, Simon and Schuster

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• Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.

  Will Durant

  Government, Political, Liberty

  Will Durant (2011). “The Life of Greece: The Story of Civilization”, p.205, Simon and Schuster

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• It seldom seems to strike the ultra-Darwinists that theology might have its own richness and subtleties, and might strange thought actually tell us things about the world that are not only to our real advantage, but will never be revealed by science.

  Simon Conway Morris

  Real, World, Might

  Simon Conway Morris (2003). “Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe”, p.316, Cambridge University Press

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• My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter - with infinite subtlety - spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go, - and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet; - and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Hate, Vanity, People

  Lafcadio Hearn (2008). “The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Including the Japanese Letters”, p.147, Wildside Press LLC

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• A fox is subtlety itself.

  Aristophanes

  Foxes

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• In movies, there are some things the French do that Americans are increasingly incapable of doing. One is honoring the complexities of youth. It's a quiet, difficult undertaking, requiring subtlety in a filmmaker and perception and patience from us.

  Wesley Morris

  Patience, Perception, Youth

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• Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings.

  Joseph Story

  Philosophical, Exercise, Expression

  Joseph Story (1851). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.322

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• Pastries . . . can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world.

  Muriel Barbery

  Needs, World, Coats

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• Can't stand it. Too many amps, too much volume, it's just flat-out ear assault. Speedy guitars leave me not feeling detached but physically upset. When you think of all the subtleties that were built into the guitar and amps for you to discover they completely cover the whole lot with a rack of effects. The guitar doesn't need that.

  Jeff Beck

  Thinking, Guitar, Upset

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• Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul, and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Book, Knowledge, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.149

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• Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.

  Carol Shields

  Thinking, Long, People

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• Some people demand a five-line capsule summary. Something you'd read in a magazine. They want you to say, 'This is the story of the duality of man and the duplicity of governments.' I hear people try to do it -- give the five-line summary -- but if a film has any substance or subtlety, whatever you say is never complete, it's usually wrong, and it's necessarily simplistic: truth is too multifaceted to be contained in a five-line summary. If the work is good, what you say about it is usually irrelevant.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Men, Duplicity, People

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• The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.

  Edward Abbey

  Beautiful, Girl, Laughter

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.34, RosettaBooks

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• A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

  Karl Marx

  Business, Sight, Analysis

  Karl Marx (1988). “Marx Selections”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Heart, People, Bored

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• She says that what you did was a cry for help." "It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.

  Holly Black

  Yelling, Helping, Cry

  Holly Black (2010). “White Cat”, p.22, Simon and Schuster

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• Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.

  T. S. Eliot

  Typewriters, Long, Crafts

  T. S. Eliot (2011). “The Letters of T. S. Eliot Volume 1: 1898-1922”, p.240, Faber & Faber

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• Such physical matters were nice, yet, to him, intelligence and passion born of living, the ability to move and be moved by subtleties of the mind and spirit, were what really counted.

  Robert James Waller

  Nice, Moving, Passion

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