Obscure quotes
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Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.
-- Agnes Repplier -
In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled.
-- Aldous Huxley -
No verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as poetry whatever other qualities it may possess.
-- Alfred Austin -
The task of the teacher of the Bible is to open up what’s closed, to make plain what is obscure, to unravel what is knotted and to unfold what is tightly packed.
-- Alistair Begg -
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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 -
The pure playfulness of certain wholly whimsical portions of (Charles) Cros’s work should not obscure the fact that at the center of some of his most beautiful poems a revolver is leveled straight at us.
-- Andre Breton -
If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one,
-- Arthur Conan Doyle -
There are strange things lost and forgotten in obscure corners of the newspaper.
-- Arthur Machen -
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I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.
-- Baltasar Gracian -
A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.
-- Barbara Walters -
I see woefully obscure poetry as simply a kind of verbal rudeness.
-- Billy Collins -
Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
-- Blaise Pascal -
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You can be so dignified that you obscure the reality of what is going on.
-- Cathy McMorris Rodgers -
Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, ... I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.
-- Charles Darwin -
To love it too much is to obscure and not see what is there.
-- Dennis Potter -
I am never needlessly obscure I am needfully obscure, when I am obscure.
-- Donald Barthelme -
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Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.
-- E. B. White -
The obscure we always see sooner or later; the obvious always seems to take a little longer.
-- Edward R. Murrow -
The perfect war is started for obscure reasons, is hopelessly murderous, and accomplishes nothing.
-- Errol Morris -
Written forms obscure our view of language. They are not so much a garment as a disguise.
-- Ferdinand de Saussure -
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Rock roll is not obscure, it's really easy to understand. So is my painting.
-- Grace Slick -
When the situation is obscure, attack
-- Heinz Guderian -
Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
-- Henri Frederic Amiel -
Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.
-- Horace -
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Not to create confusion in what is clear, but to throw light on what is obscure.
-- Horace -
I strive to be brief, and become obscure.
-- Horace -
In laboring to be concise, I become obscure. [Lat., Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.]
-- Horace -
In trying to be concise I become obscure.
-- Horace -
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In labouring to be brief, I become obscure.
-- Horace -
A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is obscure.
-- Hugh Kingsmill -
I am not afraid of death, but would not want to die in some obscure or pointless way.
-- Isabelle Eberhardt -
It is better to be famous than notorious, but better to be notorious than obscure.
-- James Kern Feibleman -
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To claim that wines should not be changed is a heresy; the palate becomes saturated and after the third glass the best of wines arouses nothing but an obscure sensation.
-- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin -
I don't think I'd have any friends if I didn't obscure at least 99% of my thoughts.
-- Jon Richardson -
I have a diverse audience, which is great, because I like doing things that are a bit more obscure, and I love doing things that are very popular as well. Each has its own bit of joy. So I try to mix it up.
-- Kate Beaton -
I am Me, You are You, I'm just living my life, you should just live your own life, so take back those obscure preaching and do what you are supposed to do
-- Kim Heechul -
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People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.
-- Leonard Cohen -
The freedom to create is somehow linked with facility of access to those obscure regions below the conscious mind.
-- Loren Eiseley -
Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.
-- Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington -
To ask for an explanation is to explain the obscure by the more obscure.
-- Maurice Merleau-Ponty -
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Lenin sensed that Tukhachevsky was a kindred spirit. He delegated the most responsible jobs to the obscure lieutenant.
-- Mikhail Tukhachevsky -
The function of a great library is to store obscure books.
-- Nicholson Baker -
Spero Speroni explains admirably how an author who writes very clearly for himself is often obscure to his readers. "It is," he says, "because the author proceeds from the thought to the expression, and the reader from the expression to the thought.
-- Nicolas Chamfort -
Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.
-- Nicolaus Copernicus -
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Being obscure in acronyms is great. I think I'll start making up my own... INYM - I'm Not Your Momma.
-- Paul Vixie -
Being horrible in a big film is a quicker nosedive than doing an obscure film and making no money.
-- Renee Zellweger -
Do they [the publishers of Murphy] not understand that if the book is slightly obscure it is because it is a compression and thatto compress it further can only make it more obscure?
-- Samuel Beckett -
There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.
-- Sara Zarr -
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For most people it's easier to support an eminent person in deserved disgrace than an obscure one who has been wronged.
-- Shirley Hazzard -
The whole purpose of propaganda is to make the obvious seem obscure, or offensive
-- Stefan Molyneux -
We allow words to obscure the interpretation of the deeper meaning.
-- Stephen Young -
At various points in our lives, or on a quest, and for reasons that often remain obscure, we are driven to make decisions which prove with hindsight to be loaded with meaning. (225)
-- Swami Satchidananda -
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The past is certain, the future obscure.
-- Thales -
Never be so brief as to become obscure.
-- Tryon Edwards -
Things are more beautiful when they're obscure.
-- Veda Hille -
I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.
-- Vikram Seth -
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If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.
-- Vladimir Nabokov -
I'd rather hear an ugly truth, rather than an obscure lie.
-- Ana Monnar -
Life never ceases. Life is an overflowing source, and death is only an obscure effect of illusions.
-- Andre Luiz Moreira -
I play popular songs. This is not some obscure, unusual music. This is popular music.
-- Frank Fairfield -
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I still buy CDs and DVDs, but generally for more obscure material.
-- Julian Ovenden -
I have like 10 different processes I go to. My favorite one is to just go to an obscure neighborhood I haven't been to in decades and just wander around.
-- Robert Sietsema -
Sometimes I'll go into an interview not knowing what it's about or who it's for. Sometimes I'm a little bit more prepared. I've been in certain interviews where they ask me questions that I know nothing about. Like obscure albums and they want to know my favorite song and I don't even know what to say.
-- Sameer Gadhia -
I had been digging so much for my show, Minimal Wave - constantly finding fresh old material to play every week - that I ended up discovering all these obscure bands that no one had really heard here. It was very exciting to be able to play their records on the air for a new audience and be able to get instant feedback.
-- Veronica Vasicka -
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I heard Tom Waits in this kinky shop on Belmont Street in Chicago. Considering the way I was raised, they were such obscure voices, but their music saved my life - I didn't know who I was before I heard Bob Dylan and Tom Waits.
-- Willis Earl Beal -
Color is made to obscure the brightest endowments, to degrade the fairest character, and to check the highest and most praiseworthy aspirations.
-- Charles Lenox Remond -
Experts always tend to obscure the obvious.
-- D. V. Ager -
I've never been good at self-promotion. And my URL is really obscure. And for years and years, there was nothing about me on my website.
-- David Rees -
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When I started playing solo 10 years ago, I had some ham-fisted idea about trying to subvert the "singer-songwriter" tag/genre, and I tried to obscure my identity into the identity of a collective or band or whatever. That's part of the reason that I used to play with backing tapes and why so much of my early stuff was so awash in tape hiss and echo noise.
-- Ted Leo -
Boyhood is distracted for years with precepts of grammar that are infinitely prolix, perplexed and obscure.
-- John Amos Comenius
