Subtle Quotes - Page 33

• There are two basic rules which should never be broken. Be subtle. And don't, for God's sake, try to do business with anyone who's having a bad game.

  William Davis

  Golf, Games, Two

  William Davis (1973). “The Punch book of golf”

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• Lay not the plummet to the line; religion hath no landmarks; no human keenness can discern the subtle shades of faith.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Faith, Lines, Shade

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1849). “Tupper's Poetical Works: Proverbial Philosophy, A Thousand Lines, Hacterus ... : with a Portrait of the Author”, p.49

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• Violence, passion, indignation, loyalty, integrity, incorruptibility, shameless egoism, generosity, excitability, energy, a hundred horse-power drive - none of it very subtle: Ethel [Smyth] didn't deal in pastel shades, she went for the stronger colors, the blood-red, anything deep and pumping out of the arteries of the heart.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Loyalty, Horse, Integrity

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• How subtle is the relationship between the traveler and his luggage! He knows, as no one else knows, its idiosyncrasies, its contents ... and always some small nuisance which he wishes he had not brought; had known, indeed, before starting that he would regret it, but brought it all the same.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Travel, Regret, Wish

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• My cousin just got married for the totally wrong reasons. She married a man for money. She wasn't real subtle about it. Instead of calling him her fiancé, she kept calling him her financee.

  Rita Rudner

  Cousin, Real, Men

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• Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in mood, children will persist in discussing the color of a recently sighted cement-mixer long after one's own interest in the topic has waned.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Children, Color, Long

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.53, Vintage

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• Who can describe
  Women's hypocrisies! their subtle wiles,
  Betraying smiles, feign'd tears, inconstancies!
  Their painted outsides, and corrupted minds,
  The sum of all their follies, and their falsehoods.

  Thomas Otway

  Women, Anger, Hypocrisy

  Thomas Otway (1812). “The Works of Thomas Otway: Consisting of His Plays, Poems, and Letters”, p.156

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• The past is such a subtle thing. [But] in the end, nothing else exists, everything is made of the past, even the future.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Past, Ends, Made

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• There is an alchemy of quiet malice by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Ordinary, Poison, Quiet

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.103

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• Time is the subtle thief of youth.

  John Milton

  Thieves, Youth

  "How soon hath time" l. 1 (1645)

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• you are brilliant and subtle if you come from Iowa and really strange and you live as you live and you are always very well taken care of if you come from Iowa.

  Gertrude Stein

  Taken, Iowa, Care

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• The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.

  Agnes Repplier

  Past, Foolish, Delusion

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• Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought.

  Simone Weil

  Science, Intellectual, Principles

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.156, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Words are the most subtle symbols which we possess and our human fabric depends on them.

  Iris Murdoch

  Fabric, Symbols, Humans

  Iris Murdoch (2013). “The Sovereignty of Good”, p.33, Routledge

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• Envy may justly be called "the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity;" it is the most acid fruit that grows on the stock of sin, a fluid so subtle that nothing but the fire of divine love can purge it from the soul.

  Hosea Ballou

  Fire, Envy, Soul

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• A history that should pursue all the subtle threads from end to end might be eminently valuable, but not as a tribute to peace and conciliation.

  Lord Acton

  Might, Ends, Should

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.76, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Photography's potential as a great image-maker and communicator is really no different from the same potential in the best poetry where familiar, everyday words, placed within a special context, can soar above the intellect and touch subtle reality in a unique way.

  Paul Caponigro

  Photography, Unique, Reality

  Paul Caponigro (1972). “Paul Caponigro”

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• The scent organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio - rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord - a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began. The final blast of thyme died away; there was a round of applause; the lights went up.

  Aldous Huxley

  Simple, Keys, Light

  Aldous Huxley (1950). “The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley: Brave new world”

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• The interesting thing that happens for many people when they first start meditating is that they'll be doing it for a few months, and they will begin to change, but the experience is so subtle that they're not even aware of it.

  David Lynch

  People, Interesting, Months

  "An Ocean of Solutions". Interview with Chris Grosso, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

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• American humor ... is not subtle. It is something that makes you laugh the moment you hear it, you have not to think a scrap.

  Elinor Glyn

  Humor, Thinking, Laughing

  Elinor Glyn (2013). “The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection”, p.252, eBookIt.com

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• Confined to common life thy numbers flow,
  And neither soar too high nor sink too low;
  There strength and ease in graceful union meet,
  Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet;
  Yet powerful to abash the from of crime
  And crimson error's cheek with sportive rhyme.
  [Lat., Verba togae sequeris, junctura callidus acri,
  Ore teres modico, pallentes radere mores
  Doctus, et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.]

  Aulus Persius Flaccus

  Sweet, Powerful, Numbers

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• There is only one sex. A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing that one can scarcely understand the subtle reasons for sex distinctions with which our minds are filled.

  George Sand

  Sex, Men, Mind

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• The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Lying, Incentives, Action

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• Credit is a matter so subtle in its essence, that, as it may be obtained almost without reason, so, without reason, may it be made to melt away.

  Anthony Trollope

  Essence, Credit, May

  Anthony Trollope (2016). “Dr. Wortle's School: Trollope's Works”, p.33, 谷月社

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• The subtle sauce of malice is often indulged in by maidens of uncertain age, over their tea.

  Antoine Rivarol

  Gossip, Tea, Age

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