Obscurity Quotes - Page 9

• One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Haste, Effects, Pernicious

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.54

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• The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage; especially that of a person lately emerged from his obscurity. They never once consider that he is breaking the ice for themselves.

  William Shenstone

  Ice, People, Firsts

  William Shenstone (1927). “Men & Manners”

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• The most attractive class of people are those who are powerful obliquely, and not by the direct stroke: men of genius, but not yetaccredited: one gets the cheer of their light, without paying too great a tax.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Cheer, Powerful, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.238, Harvard University Press

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• As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Shells, Pearls, Fame

  Walter Savage Landor (1856). “Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor”, p.55

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• People newly emerged from obscurity generally launch out into indiscriminate display.

  Jean Ingelow

  People, Display

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• I wanted to drag Shakespeare from obscurity. I've been a fan my whole life.

  Joss Whedon

  Fans, Drag, Whole Life

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

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• Now, in our opinion no author should be blamed for obscurity, nor should any pains be grudged in the effort to understand him, provided that he has done his best to be intelligible. Difficult thoughts are quite distinct from difficult words. Difficulty of thought is the very heart of poetry.

  Alice Meynell

  Pain, Heart, Effort

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• Whatever obscurities may involve religious tenets, humility and love constitute the essence of true religion; the humble is formed to adore, the loving to associate with eternal love.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Religious, Humble, Humility

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• However dark our lot may be, there is light enough on the other side of the cloud, in that pure empyrean where God dwells, to irradiate every darkness of this world; light enough to clear every difficult question, remove every ground of obscurity, conquer every atheistic suspicion, silence every hard judgment, light enough to satisfy, nay, to ravish the mind forever.

  Horace Bushnell

  God, Dark, Clouds

  Horace Bushnell (1876). “Sermons for the New Life”, p.156

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• Public opinion, - a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom ... - but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction.

  Harriet Martineau

  Dark, Tyrants, Silence

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.138

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• I have gone from local obscurity to national obscurity to international obscurity. Once I learn how to monetize obscurity, I will be rich.

  Ernie J Zelinski

  Gone, Rich, Fame

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• When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.

  John Quincy Adams

  Real, Weakness, Causes

  John Quincy Adams (1810). “Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory: Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University”, p.99

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• Victor Serge died in exile and obscurity, apparently no more than a splinter of a splinter in the Marxist movement. But with the passage of the years, he looms up as one of the great moral figures of our time, an artist of such integrity and a revolutionary of such purity as to overshadow those who achieved fame and power. His failure was his success. I know of no participant in Russia's revolution and Spain's agonies who more deserves the attention of our concerned youth.

  I. F. Stone

  Integrity, Artist, Russia

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• Hegel's philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, but he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. It can quite easily be expounded lucidly in words of one syllable, but then its absurdity becomes obvious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Men, People

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.396, Psychology Press

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• I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world; it is-THE CHARITY OF ITS SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my name remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

  Robert Emmet

  Country, Writing, Ignorance

  Charles Phillips, John Philpot Curran, Henry Grattan, Robert Emmet (1840). “Irish eloquence: The speeches of the celebrated Irish orators, Philips, Curran and Grattan”, p.370

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• Science fiction offers an intensely bracing angle of view for writers to adopt, especially in a time of constant innovation and crisis, and it is a scandal that in 1999 so many writers have written it and continue to write it in obscurity.

  John Clute

  Writing, Views, Innovation

  "In defense of science fiction" by John Clute, www.cnn.com. May 26, 1999.

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• Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is.

  Seth Godin

  Problem, Piracy

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• This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet.

  Blaise Pascal

  Doubt, Looks, Matter

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• I shop a lot more for furniture than I do for clothes. I much prefer going to an antique shop full of obscurities.

  Erin Wasson

  Clothes, Antiques, Furniture

  "Erin Wasson on Her Hair, Antique Shopping, and Cooking". Interview with Leah Melby Clinton, www.elle.com. September 20, 2012.

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• Tungsten, X-rays, and Coolidge form a trinity that has left an indelible impression upon our life and times. The key word in this triad is Coolidge, for his work brought the element tungsten from laboratory obscurity to the central role of the industrial stage and gave the X-ray a central role in the progress of medicine throughout the world.

  Chauncey Guy Suits

  Science, Keys, Medicine

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• ...ambition without pious restraint must end in failure, often involving in its ruin that beautiful reverence which solaces common men for the obscurity and poverty of their lot.

  Russell Kirk

  Beautiful, Ambition, Men

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.35, Regnery Publishing

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• "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always different from what was expected. Everything new is received with contempt-for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power unobserved.

  Ludwig Feuerbach

  Knowing, Different, Nazareth

  "The Radical". Book by C. C. Shackford, vol. 7, p. 329, 1870.

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• But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, the word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity can be applied to light. ... Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscures truth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.

  Thomas Paine

  Light, Fog, Religion

  Thomas Paine “The Writings of Thomas Paine”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• There are minerals called hydrophanous, which are not transparent till they are immersed in water, when they become so; as the hydrophane, a variety of opal. So it is with many a Christian. Till the floods of adversity been poured over him, his character appears marred and clouded by selfishness and worldly influences. But trials clear away the obscurity, and give distinctness and beauty to his piety.

  Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

  Christian, Character, Adversity

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• media saturation is probably very destructive to art. New movements get overexposed and exhausted before they have a chance to grow, and they turn to ashes in a short time. Some degree of time and obscurity is often very necessary to artists.

  Joyce Johnson

  Art, Media, Degrees

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