Obscure Quotes - Page 12

• The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Mean, Vigor, Way

  Michel de Montaigne, Charles Cotton (1711). “Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: In Three Books with Marginal Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator,”, p.29

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• Boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of grammar that are infinitely prolix, perplexed and obscure.

  John Amos Comenius

  Years, Boyhood, Grammar

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• I always have directors who are somewhat frustrated because they'll reference a beautifully obscure film from the '50s or '60s or '70s, and I've not seen it.

  Amy Adams

  Frustrated, Directors, Film

  Interview with Elvis Mitchell, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 6, 2013.

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• Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Self

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• There are three kinds of explanation in science: explanations which throw a light upon, or give a hint at a matter; explanations which do not explain anything; and explanations which obscure everything.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Science, Light, Giving

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• Good design, at least part of the time, includes the criterion of being direct in relation to the problem at hand - not obscure, trendy, or stylish. A new language, visual or verbal, must be couched in a language that is already understood.

  Ivan Chermayeff

  Hands, Design, Language

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• Experts always tend to obscure the obvious.

  D. V. Ager

  Experts, Veteran, Obvious

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• It seems that certain transcendental realities emit rays to which the masses are sensitive. That is how, for example, when an event takes place, when at the front an army is in danger, or defeated, or victorious, the rather obscure news which the cultivated man does not quite understand, excite in the masses an emotion which surprises him and in which, once the experts have informed him of the actual military situation, he recognizes the populace's perception of that "aura" surrounding great events and visible for hundreds of kilometers.

  Marcel Proust

  Military, War, Army

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• Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known. This was the sound conclusion of the Academic sceptics, who were the least surly of philosophers.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Sound, Philosopher, Affair

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• I don't think I'd have any friends if I didn't obscure at least 99% of my thoughts.

  Jon Richardson

  Thinking, My Thoughts, Ifs

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• Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit. He delegated the most responsible jobs to the obscure lieutenant.

  Mikhail Tukhachevsky

  Jobs, Spirit, Kindred

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• Poetry, in the entire course of its development, has always been trying to capture meanings and problems which are still obscure and dormant. Poetry tries to awaken them with a kiss, wherever they may be: in the air, in things, in human beings.

  Mieczyslaw Jastrun

  Kissing, Air, Trying

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• Tis an admirable thing to see how some people will labour to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense, like a gentleman I knew, who would never say 'the weather grew cold,' but that 'winter begins to salute us.' I have no patience for such coxcombs.

  Dorothy Osborne

  Winter, Weather, People

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• The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Office, Thrones

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.325, Modern Library

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• Mathematics is one of the most basic -- and most ancient -- types of knowledge. Yet the details of its historical development remain obscure to all but a few specialists.

  Ivor Grattan-Guinness

  Historical, Details, Development

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• I strive to be brief, and become obscure.

  Horace

  Strive, Miscellaneous

  'Ars Poetica' l. 25

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• Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, remains obscure; one must remember we are dealing with barbarians.

  Tacitus

  Barbarians, Firsts, England

  Cornelius Tacitus, Harold Mattingly (1965). “Tacitus on Britain and Germany: a translation of the Agricola and the Germania”

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• In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled.

  Aldous Huxley

  Ideas, World, Clear

  Aldous Huxley (2015). “Crome Yellow”, p.22, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• The great war that broke so suddenly upon the world two years ago, and which has swept up within its flame so great a part of thecivilized world, has affected us very profoundly.... With its causes and its objects we are not concerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupendous flood has burst we are not interested to search for or explore.

  Woodrow Wilson

  War, Flames, Years

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• We have the words in our pockets,
  obscure directions. The old ones
  have taken away the light of their presence.

  Denise Levertov

  Taken, Light, Poetry

  Denise Levertov (2003). “Selected Poems”, p.34, New Directions Publishing

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• Beneath the sun's rays our shadow is our comrade;
  When clouds obscure the sun our shadow flees.
  So Fortune's smiles the fickle crowd pursues,
  But swift is gone whenever she veils her face.

  Ovid

  Clouds, Shadow, Rays

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• The Light in you is the unalterable truth of who you are. You can deny it and obscure it, but you cannot uncreate it.

  Marianne Williamson

  Light, Deny, Who You Are

  Twitter post from Jun 11, 2015

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• Other men are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow-men is ever new,
  active, and immediate.

  Washington Irving

  Men, Growing, Fellow Man

  Washington Irving (1999). “Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories”, p.146, Penguin

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• There is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd Doctrines, as to guard them round about with Legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefin'd Words.

  John Locke

  Giving, Doctrine, Way

  John Locke (1714). “The Works of John Locke Esq: In Three Volumes. The Contents of which Follow in the Next Leaf. With Alphabetical Tables. ...”, p.228

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• In this crazy mirror of terror and art a pseudo-quotation made up of obscure Shakespeareanisms (Chapter Three) somehow produces, despite its lack of literal meaning, the blurred diminutive image of the acrobatic performance that so gloriously supplies the bravura ending for the next chapter.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Art, Crazy, Mirrors

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1996). “Novels and Memoirs, 1941-1951”, Library of America

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