Subtlety Quotes - Page 8

• Spiritual wisdom consists in finding out the subtleties, policies, and depths of any indwelling sin... to trace this serpent in all its turnings and windings; be able to say, at its most secret actings, 'This is your old way and course; I know what you aim at.'

  John Owen

  Spiritual, Secret, Acting

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• But nature - that is, biological evolution - has not fitted man to any specific environment. On the contrary, ... he has a rather crude survival kit; and yet -this is the paradox of the human condition - one that fits him to all environments. Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Men, Emotional, Animal

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• Someone once said that middle age is like rereading a book that you haven't read since you were a callow youth. The first time around you were dazzled by impressions, emotions, and tended to miss the finer points. In middle age you have the equipment to see the subtleties you missed before and you savor it more slowly.

  Eda LeShan

  Book, Missing, Age

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• The bully mind is not capable of loving or respecting others nor can it love or respect itself. Life's subtleties and the means of survival require its pretense of both these qualities.

  Rick Stein

  Bullying, Mean, Survival

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• And when with excellent Microscopes I discern in otherwise invisible Objects the Inimitable Subtlety of Nature's Curious Workmanship; And when, in a word, by the help of Anatomicall Knives, and the light of Chymicall Furnaces, I study the Book of Nature, and consult the Glosses of Aristotle, Epicurus, Paracelsus, Harvey, Helmont, and other learn'd Expositors of that instructive Volumne; I find my self oftentimes reduc'd to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are thy works, O Lord? In wisdom hast thou made them all.

  Robert Boyle

  God, Nature, Book

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• If it were customary to send daughters to school like sons, and if they were then taught the natural sciences, they would learn as thoroughly and understand the subtleties of all the arts and sciences as well as sons.

  Christine de Pizan

  Education, Daughter, Art

  "The Book of the City of Ladies". Book by Christine de Pizan, transl. by Earl Jeffrey Richards, Part I, ch. 27, p. 63, 1983.

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• I’m I really working on the right thing, or once I put the solution in place I’m I going to get the benefit out of it, or is this masking some other underlying thing, whether it’s personal or what have you. I mean, I always get to that too because that’s the subtlety of problem selection.

  Dave Evans

  Mean, Problem, Solutions

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.

  William Godwin

  Elements, Statistics, Logic

  William Godwin (2006). “Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries”, p.589, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Your brain works with all the subtlety of a malicious child.

  Steven Erikson

  Children, Brain, Malicious

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• The Silvertop and the Goldtop both had subtlety where it was needed but lots of definition as well. I liked the different voicings of the distortion/fuzz elements.

  Dweezil Zappa

  Different, Elements, Definitions

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• Playing (Serena) it always felt like playing a steamroller. No subtlety, no finesse, just raw, loud power. To respect this style of play was always a bit tough for me, but of course I had to, because the rules of tennis dont state that having a beautiful game is required to become No. 1.

  Martina Hingis

  Beautiful, Games, Play

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• His musical inspiration operates in a world uncluttered by conventional bar lines, conventional chord changes, and conventional ways of blowing or fingering a saxophone. Such practical 'limitations' did not even have to be overcome in his music; they somehow never existed for him. Despite this - or more accurately, because of this - his playing has a deep inner logic. Not an obvious surface logic, it is based on subtleties of reaction, subtleties of timing and color that are, I think, quite new to jazz - at least they have never appeared in so pure and direct a form.

  Gunther Schuller

  Inspiration, Thinking, Color

  "All American Music: Composition in the Late Twentieth Century". Book by John Rockwell, 1983.

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• Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.

  Okakura Kakuzo

  Design, Sides, Thread

  Okakura Kakuzo (2012). “The Book of Tea: Classic Edition”, p.22, Tuttle Publishing

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• As a culture I see us as presently deprived of subtleties. The music is loud, the anger is elevated, sex seems lacking in sweetness and privacy.

  Shelley Berman

  Sex, Culture, Privacy

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

  Prince Charles

  Thinking, Generosity, Imagination

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• Our growing ability to eliminate the slow-moving aspects of entertainment and go hopping from one peak to another is not without cost. Stand-up comics, movie-makers and others who earn their living entertaining no longer "waste" time with setups and plot development, lest we reach for the remote and click them off our screen. The result is a loss of subtlety, anticipation and nuance and, in the process, a coarsening of our discourse.

  William Raspberry

  Life, Moving, Loss

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• They place great stress on the clarity of our language for expressing nuances and showing subtleties.

  Bernard Pivot

  Stress, Nuance, Language

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• After Theda Bara appeared in A Fool There Was, a vampire wave surged over the country. Women appeared in vampire gowns, pendant earrings, and even young girls were attempting to change from frank, open-eyed ingenues to the almond-eyed, carmine-lipped woman of subtlety and mystery.

  Mary Pickford

  Girl, Country, Vampire

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• For each successive class of phenomena, a new calculus or a new geometry, as the case might be, which might prove not wholly inadequate to the subtlety of nature.

  Henry John Stephen Smith

  Class, Might, Cases

  Henry John Stephen Smith (1894). “Collected Mathematical Papers; Edited by J. W. L. Glaisher ... with a Mathematical Introduction by the Editor, Biographical Sketchesand a Portrait ...”

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• The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.

  Michael Foley

  Flower, Self, Imagination

  Michael Foley (2010). “The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• I am never in a hurry to reach details. First and above all I am interested in the large masses and the general character of a picture; when these are well established, then I try for subtleties of form and color. I rework the painting constantly and freely, and without any systematic method.

  Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

  Art, Character, Color

  From Corot's 'Notebooks', 1850. "Artists on Art, from the 14 to 20 Centuries". Book by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves, pp. 240-241, 1972.

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• The American capitalists are richer and stronger than their counterparts in other lands. They are also younger and more ignorant, and therefore more inclined to seek a rough settlement of difficulties without diplomatic subtlety and finesse. All that does not change the fact that American capitalism operates according to the same laws as the others, is confronted with the same fundamental problems, and is headed toward the same catastrophe.

  James P. Cannon

  Law, Land, Ignorant

  "Fascism and The Workers’ Movement". The Militant, www.marxists.org. March-April 1954.

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• Most of the films I myself like don't do very well. Every director, he has a choice, whether to go for subtlety and try to articulate every minute detail, or to go for the broad strokes and hope that the people will fill in between the lines. I tend to go for the broader strokes.

  Sylvester Stallone

  People, Choices, Trying

  "New again: Sylvester Stallone". Interview with Pat Hackett, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 2, 2015.

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• I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

  Mira Nair

  Sweet, Important, Sound

  Interview with Amaya Rivera, www.motherjones.com. March/April 2007.

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• I have nothing against bombastic music, but when it comes to making albums, I'd prefer to make music that has a sort of vulnerable subtlety to it.

  Moby

  Albums, Vulnerable, Bombastic

  "Exclusive Premiere of Moby’s New Video, 'The Last Day'". Interview with Jaeah Lee, www.motherjones.com. September 2, 2014.

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