Obscure Quotes - Page 6

• Western civilization has been at war with tribalism for 3,000 years. And that war was brought to the New World by the English colonists. A very early point in American law Chief Justice John Marshall is asked to decide the status of Indian tribes. And what he does. He calls them savages who lack the same rights as the white people who came over here, the Europeans, and colonized their land under this, what many Americans might regard as an obscure legal doctrine called the Doctrine of Discovery. But it is still the most important doctrine in American constitutional law.

  Robert A. Williams, Jr.

  War, People, Justice

  "Bill Moyers: It's a Non-Stop Land Grab From the American Indians". Interview with Bill Moyers, www.alternet.org. December 26, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.

  Italo Calvino

  Illusion, Knots, Novel

  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller".

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have like 10 different processes I go to. My favorite one is to just go to an obscure neighborhood I haven't been to in decades and just wander around.

  Robert Sietsema

  Different, My Favorite, Process

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Maybe one day I'll write my rock album so I can use more obscure references and just be weird. If the lyrics are too crazy, though, then it's not pop anymore.

  Chaz Bundick

  Crazy, Writing, Rocks

  "Toro Y Moi". Interview with Larry Fitzmaurice, pitchfork.com. January 18, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?"

  Ryan Adams

  Jobs, Voice, People

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. June 28, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Clinging uncritically to traditional ideas and beliefs often serves to obscure or deny real facts of our life history.

  Alice Miller

  Real, Ideas, Facts

  Alice Miller (1997). “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self”, p.42, Basic Books

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• From exam grading to health education to professional training to democratic participation, paths towards self-realization and success in the world are often daunting and obscure: journeys only the privileged feel confident setting off along.

  Tom Chatfield

  Journey, Self, Health Education

  "Can Video Games Alter Society.. in a Good Way?" by Tom Chatfield, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 5, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As an artist, you're always somewhat obscure. We're not talking Hollywood.

  Christian Marclay

  Artist, Talking, Hollywood

  7 Copy quote

• With a philosophy education, one can infuriate his peers, intimidate his date, think of obscure, unreliable ways to make money, and never regret a thing.

  Criss Jami

  Regret, Philosophy, Thinking

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.116, Criss Jami

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Washington tends to be full of too many traps. I think reporters there do a lot of attending news briefings and news conferences expecting to get the real news out of those relatively sterile environments. But you've got to deal with the obscure people as well as the names.

  Tom Brokaw

  Real, Thinking, Names

  "New Again: Tom Brokaw". Interview with Gale Lopez, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 20, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm in the process of trying to organize my DVDs into some kind of order and it's taking me weeks. I have everything from obscure 'Antonioni' to 'Terminator Salvation.

  Michael Weatherly

  Dvds, Order, Trying

  4 Copy quote

• Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little skeptic, you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove; I caused a rumor to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not-I could not-marry Miss Ingram. You-you strange-you almost unearthly thing!-I love as my own flesh. You-poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are-I entreat to accept me as a husband.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Mother, Pain, Husband

  Jane Eyre ch. 23 (1847)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• That it has pleased God to make Holy Scripture obscure in certain places lest, if it were perfectly clear to all, it might be vulgarized and subjected to disrespect or be so misunderstood by people of limited intelligence as to lead them into error.

  Pope Gregory VII

  Errors, People, Disrespect

  "They Tried to Keep God's Word From the Masses". In response to the request made in 1079 by Vratislaus, duke of Bohemia, seeking permission to use Slavonic in local church services; "Awake!" Magazine, (p. 7), December 2011.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The more obscure our tastes, the greater the proof of our genius.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Genius, Taste, Proof

  Jennifer Donnelly (2015). “Revolution”, p.9, Bloomsbury Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now, I'm as appreciative as the next obsessive-compulsive recovering-academic of the vast riches of material becoming available online, thanks to all those Google scanners crouched in the basements of libraries around the world, madly feeding books through their machines. I download obscure tomes onto my iPad and give thanks to the dual gods Gates and Jobs, singing hymns to all the lesser pantheon of geniuses. But there's nothing like a book.

  Laurie R. King

  Jobs, Book, Hymns

  4 Copy quote

• Observation made in the cloister or in the desert will generally be as obscure as the one and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over-fearful of a little dust.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Dust, Desert, Littles

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.6

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happy the life, that in a peaceful stream,
  Obscure, unnoticed through the vale has flow'd;
  The heart that ne'er was charm'd by fortune's gleam
  Is ever sweet contentment's blest abode.

  James Gates Percival

  Sweet, Heart, Peaceful

  4 Copy quote

• We know much of a writer by his style. An open and imperious disposition is shown in short sentences, direct and energetic. A secretive and proud mind is cold and obscure in style. An affectionate and imaginative nature pours out luxuriantly, and blossoms all over with ornament.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Style, Mind, Ornaments

  7 Copy quote

• I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Struggle, Greatness, Honor

  Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London, relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris ... The seventh edition”, p.74

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Two, Mistress, Together

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.56

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.

  Pliny the Elder

  Believe, Men, Lust

  8 Copy quote

• This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.

  Dylan Thomas

  Believe, Suffering, Violence

  Dylan Thomas (1968). “Quite Early One Morning”, p.108, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.

  Agnes Repplier

  Humor, Social, Characteristics

  Agnes Repplier (1894). “In the Dozy Hours, and Other Papers”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I feel like I am involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell me the rules, and who smiles all the time.

  Neil Gaiman

  Dark, Dice, Cards

  8 Copy quote

• Crises have a way of thrusting into the limelight hitherto obscure persons, and giving them, for a long or short period, a leading role.

  Susan Ertz

  Book, Long, Giving

  4 Copy quote