Obscure Quotes - Page 7

• One dark night the skeletons that they had carefully hidden in an obscure closet appeared, grabbed them around the throat, and strangled them.

  Benjamin Carson

  Dark, Night, Skeletons

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• Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.

  Philip K. Dick

  Men, Body, Danger

  Philip K. Dick (2012). “The Man in the High Castle”, p.175, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.

  Philip K. Dick

  Other Worlds, Evil, Different

  Philip K. Dick (2012). “The Man in the High Castle”, p.260, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Acquaintance: "A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Degrees, Rich, Enough

  Cynic's Word Book (1906) p. 12

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• Nothing out of the ordinary ever occurs to me when I'm by myself. But you attract duels, ambushes, immortal enemies, obscure creatures such as the Ra'zac, long-lost family members, and mysterious acts of magic as if they were were starving weasels and you were a rabbit that wandered into their den.

  Christopher Paolini

  Long, Magic, Enemy

  "Brisingr: Book Three". Book by Christopher Paolini, September 20, 2008.

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• Karl Popper once advised a student that if he wanted to reap intellectual fame, he should write endless pages of obscure, high-flown prose that would leave the reader puzzled and cowed. He should then here and there smuggle in a few sensible, straightforward sentences all could understand. The reader would feel that since he has grasped this part, he must have also grasped the rest. He would then congratulate himself and praise the author.

  Anthony de Jasay

  Writing, Intellectual, Pages

  "The Seen and the Unseen. Part I. On the Economics of Protecting Employment" by Anthony de Jasay, www.econlib.org. December 6, 2004.

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• At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men hurled themselves against the East; the words of an hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create history.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Men, Civilization, Voice

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• The life of famous men was more glorious in antiquity; the life of obscure men is happier with the moderns.

  Madame de Stael

  Men, Eras, Glorious

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• Yes, there are plenty of heroes and heroines everywhere you look. They are not famous people. They are generally obscure and modest people doing useful work, keeping their families together and taking an active part in the health of their communities, opposing what is evil (in one way or another) and defending what is good. Heroes do not want power over others.

  Edward Abbey

  Hero, People, Evil

  "Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast".

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• 'God' is the name given to the most 'important' human idea. In English, as in other languages, the original sense of the word is obscure. But the character of the name is the same in all languages: it is a question. 'God' is the question 'Is there something more important than, something besides, man?'

  Laura Riding

  Character, Men, Names

  "The Idea of God". "Essays from 'Epilogue' 1935-1937". Book by Laura Riding, Robert Graves, and Mark Jacobs, 2001.

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• Not to create confusion in what is clear, but to throw light on what is obscure.

  Horace

  Light, Confusion, Clear

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• The mathematician who is without value to mathematicians, the thinker who is obscure or meaningless to thinkers, the dramatist who fails to move the pit, may be wise, may be eminent, but as an author he has failed.

  George Henry Lewes

  Wise, Moving, May

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• For Spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their airy purposes, And works of love or enmity fulfil.

  John Milton

  Sex, Essence, Enmity

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 1, l. 423

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• Writing about writing is a bit like talking about a conversation you are having; it tends to obscure desperation about where the next word is coming from.

  Renata Adler

  Writing, Talking, Next

  Renata Adler (1969). “A year in the dark: journal of a film critic, 1968-69”

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• I guess I try and learn all the time from every experience in life, so my thinking is a hybrid of everything. I'd have to attribute some of that to my work in the fashion industry - in some obscure way.

  Lily Cole

  Fashion, Thinking, Trying

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When an alluring woman comes in at the door," warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, "discretion may be found up the chimney". It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: "The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.

  Ernest Bramah

  Doors, Should Have, Profound

  Ernest Bramah (1963). “The Celestial Omnibus”

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• To mystify, in the active sense, is to befuddle, cloud, obscure, mask whatever is going on, whether this be experience, action, or process, or whatever is "the issue." It induces confusion in the sense that there is failure to see what is "really" being experienced, or being done, or going on, and failure to distinguish or discriminate the actual issues. This entails the substitution of false for true constructions of what is being experienced, being done (praxis), or going on (process), and the substitution of false issues for the actual issues.

  R. D. Laing

  Clouds, Issues, Confusion

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• The deepest life of nature is silent and obscure; so often the elements that move and mould society are the results of the sister's counsel and the mother's prayer.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Mother, Prayer, Moving

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• A concealed truth, that's all a lie is. Either by omission or commission we never do more than obscure. The truth stays in the undergrowth, waiting to be discovered.

  Josephine Hart

  Lying, Omission, Waiting

  Josephine Hart (1991). “Damage: a novel”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• Books are influential in proportion to their obscurity, provided that the obscurity be that of inexpressible Realities. The Bible is the most obscure book in the world. He must be a great fool who thinks he understands the plainest chapter of it.

  Coventry Patmore

  Book, Reality, Thinking

  Coventry Patmore (2016). “The Root, the Rod and the Flower”, p.23, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Solaristics, wrote Muntius, is a substitute for religion in the space age. It is faith wrapped in the cloak of science; contact, the goal for which we are striving, is as vague and obscure as communion with the saints or the coming of the Messiah.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Space, Goal, Age

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• He who does the most good is the greatest man. Power, authority, dignity, honors, wealth and station--these are so far valuable as they put it into the hands of men to be more exemplary and more useful than they could be in an obscure and private life. But then these are means conducting to an end, and that end is goodness.

  John Jortin

  Mean, Men, Greatness

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• Life is like a film screen: pictures come, make an impression, go, and then make a place for new pictures with new impressions which obscure the previous ones. Some of those old pictures fade, but the impressions they leave will never pass away. Such an impression is the image of Hein Sietsma -- a joyful Christian who loved life so much but was still willing to give it to the great, good, and holy cause.

  Diet Eman

  Christian, Giving, Life Is Like

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• I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is.

  Matthew Arnold

  Life Is

  Matthew Arnold (1979). “The Poems of Matthew Arnold”, Longman Publishing Group

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• Everybody uses pop culture as a shorthand. You might make an obscure reference to Monty Python or Iron Eagle that only some people will get, but if they do it conveys a world of meaning.

  Ernest Cline

  Python, Eagles, Iron

  "Author Ernie Cline Was Told Video Games Would Rot His Brain, But Who Holds the High Score Now?". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. July 10, 2015.

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