Subtlety Quotes

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. (Isaac Asimov)
The difference between stupid and intelligent people – and this is true whether or not they are well-educated – is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. View quote
Neal Stephenson
Human subtlety...will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. View quote
Leonardo da Vinci
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. View quote
Kakuzo Okakura
There was a subtlety about Peggy Lee. It was powerful. There was a valuable use of space. Everything was not cluttered. Her voice was out front and was the key instrument. View quote
Rita Coolidge
Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
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. View quote
James P. Cannon
One can derive the same fun from print-making as from making mud pies and great subtlety can be achieved through the use of transparent inks, half-tone screens and even accidental colour combinations, which is often where the art hides. View quote
Ralph Steadman
I love the subtlety and tonal range of the acoustic guitar. View quote
Dan Fogelberg
Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. View quote
Leo Buscaglia
My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter - with infinite subtlety - spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go, - and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet; - and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them. (Lafcadio Hearn)
Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind. View quote
Masiela Lusha
Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will. View quote
Oliver Cromwell
Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
She says that what you did was a cry for help." "It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety. View quote
Holly Black
Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose. View quote
Carol Shields
My idol was Jack Benny and he was the master of subtlety and timing. View quote
Don Knotts
I like very dry humor. I dont like things that are over the top. I like subtlety. I like things that are nonchalant. I like characters that are sort of monotone and based in dark comedy. View quote
Emily Rios
Symbolism perhaps is a bit in your face, and I've tried my best to control that as best I can as I've grown older and thought that one could approach something with a little more subtlety. View quote
John Schlesinger
It's not a country of articulate people, sophisticated people. There's too little subtlety. Men and women don't enjoy each other very much in Australia. I don't find very many men sexy in Australia. Of course, I'm married and out of it, but still. View quote
Judy Davis
In Maximus all the streams of the Greek patristic tradition flow together in synthesis. At the same time, with real originality, there is much from within that tradition that he takes to a higher level. But the course of this saint's life impressed me even more than his teaching. Once again, like Athanasius, one man was able to defend orthodox Christology against a whole empire. A Byzantine joins forces with Pope St. Martin I in Rome and finally suffers martyrdom for the true faith. This is the summit of that unity of doctrine and life which marks the whole patristic age; speculation and mysticism of the greatest subtlety are wedded to a soberly and consciously grasped martyrdom. In St. Maximus we can see in the Catholica what Kierkegaard found within the individual. (Hans Urs von Balthasar)
When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his fingerends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man's passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted- as easily as his mood. Dorothea's entrance was the freshness of morning. View quote
George Eliot
[the double line in his paintings] is still one line, as in the case of your grooves [= the wide sunken lines in the relief's, the artist Gorin made then]... In my last things the double line widens to form a plane, and yet it remains a line. Be that as it may, I believe that this question is one of those which lie beyond the realm of theory, and which are of such subtlety that they are rooted in the mystery of 'art. View quote
Piet Mondrian
I wanted to proclaim a return to simplicity by ways of an immediate art without any subtlety, comprehensible to all. I love Louis David, because he is so anti-impressionist.. .I love the dryness in his work and also in that of Ingres. That was my way, and it touched me, instantly. View quote
Fernand Léger
...Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein! View quote
Aleister Crowley