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Subtle Quotes

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Subtle Quotes

“The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, and religious scripture a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.”

InspirationalHumansStillsMatterSpiritualReligionReligiousAtheismExpressionProductsWeaknessAtheistScriptureCollectionsSubtleInterpretationLegendsWord Of GodPrimitiveNeverthelessThere Is No GodAtheisticTheistThere Being No GodGod And ScienceScience GodSubtle Atheist
Author:Albert Einstein
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“I do think that women could make politics irrelevant; by a kind of spontaneous cooperative action the like of which we have never seen; which is so far from people’s ideas of state structure or viable social structure that it seems to them like total anarchy — when what it really is, is very subtle forms of interrelation that do not follow some heirarchal pattern which is fundamentally patriarchal. The opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity, yet I think it’s women who are going to have to break this spiral of power and find the trick of cooperation.”

PeopleThinkingKindIdeasStatesSeemsActionFormSocialBreakOppositesStructurePatternsTricksSubtleCooperationAnarchySpontaneousPatriarchyIrrelevantSpiralsFraternityCooperativesSocial StructureMatriarchy
Author:Germaine Greer
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“Music is storming, driving, relentless, devotional, slinky, subtle, heartbreakingly-beautiful sounds that, lyrically, switch from the cynical to the sanguine, the defeated to the defiant, dealing in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, panties, God, Auden, Johnny Cash, cold potatoes, too-much-money, not enough money, writer’s block, flowers, animals and more flowers. But maybe I’m projecting here.”

ChildrenWarEnoughBeautifulRomanceSoundAnimalToo MuchFlowerColdMusic IsDrivingBlockRejectionSubtleCashCynicalDefeatedPotatoesRelentlessWriter's BlockDevotionalPantiesSanguineAudenSlinkies
Author:Nick Cave
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“We make no apology then for raising our voices loud to a world that is ripening in sin the lord has said,” Say nothing but repentance unto this generation; The adversary is subtle, cunning, he knows that he cannot induce good men and women immediately to do major evils so he moves slyly, whispering half truths until he has his intended victims following him finally he clamps his chains upon them and fetters them tight, and then he laughs at their discomfiture and their misery.”

KnowsMenWorldSaidMovingEvilVoiceSinHalfLordLaughingGenerationsMajorsMen And WomenVictimMiseryFollowingChainsLoudSubtleGood ManRepentanceApologyCunningAdversariesWhisperingThis GenerationFettersHalf TruthRipening
Author:Spencer W. Kimball
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“It's funny how strangers can pass in front of you every day and all you see is a flat shadow, a vague outline, not noticing any of the details. They move in a gray crowd, always looking the same and acting the same, simple caricatures of who they really are, but once you get to know them, you notice the specific, tiniest things, you pay attention to the intricacies of their personalities, their habits and particular ways of walking and talking, the subtle changes in their appearance and dress.”

KnowsWayMovingSimplePayActingAttentionTalkingFrontsParticularPersonalityHabitWalkingShadowDressesDetailsCrowdsAppearanceStrangerPay AttentionSubtleFlatsGrayVagueOutlinesNoticingCaricaturesIntricacy
Book:As Simple as Snow
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“They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love...poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.”

WorldHumansLooksWould BeBeautifulPoorSecretSeeingHonestIdentityReflectionMirrorsDearTortureIsolationSubtleComradeNarcissus
Author:Truman Capote
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“Marc’s hand tightened visibly around Kevin’s fingers, his digits going white. Again. Both men clenched their jaws, Kevin in pain, and Marc in an obvious effort to control his temper and keep from breaking Kevin’s hand. Off. Why couldn’t guys find a more original way to test each other’s manly prowess? Arm wrestling might have been more subtle. Or maybe comparing the length of their…canines.”

MenWayHas BeensHandsMightPainGuyWhiteEffortArmsTestsOriginalsFingersObviousCompareSubtleLengthWrestlingTemperMight Have BeenManlyKevinCanineProwess
Book:Rogue
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“I know California isn't a real destination. You can't get there from New Jersey, not simply by following a line drawn on a map. The process of arrival is more subtle and complex. It involves acts of contrition. You must appease the gods. You must find novel forms of penance. You must tattoo your children and look at the wonder. It's about conjuring and awakening and intuitions you wish you never had.”

KnowsLooksChildrenRealFormWishProcessLinesWonderNovelComplexesFollowingIntuitionAwakeningCaliforniaYour ChildrenSubtleMapsDestinationTattooJerseyWish YouArrivalsNew JerseyPenanceAppeaseConjuringContrition
Author:Kate Braverman
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“Observance of customs and laws can very easily be a cloak for a lie so subtle that our fellow human beings are unable to detect it. It may help us to escape all criticism, we may even be able to deceive ourselves in the belief of our obvious righteousness. But deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, 'There is something not right,' no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or by the moral code.”

MenHumansMayMatterHelpingAbleLawLyingBeliefVoiceHuman BeingsMoralOpinionConscienceCriticismFellowsAverageObviousSurfaceCodeSubtleRighteousnessCustomsDeceivingPublic OpinionDeep DownWhisperingCloaksMemories Dreams ReflectionsAverage ManObservanceMoral CodeBelow The Surface
Author:Carl Jung
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“I"m often accused of being irreligious, and I suppose it's for this very reason. Whether it's Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism, or any other ism, when a religioin is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and you must submit to the system to earn that love, I consider it the worst of corruptions... For centuries, the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. It's been far more important to focus on the sin problem than the love problem.”

IfsWantNeedsHas BeensImportantReasonProblemChurchSinChristianityFocusWorstCenturyBuddhismIslamCorruptionSubtleCatholicismHinduismSubmitJudaismHis LoveAccusedPremisesIsms
Author:Erwin McManus
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“What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young.”

MenHumansSelfYoungFoundStrongCausesDecisionEmotionSupportConditionsDangerWallMassCapableInstitutionsErrorsActiveAriseDevotionSubtleHardshipLoyalFierceTendernessJustificationRestraintAlliancesOffspringParentalPremiumHuman IntelligenceSelf RestraintBiological Science
Author:H. G. Wells
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“The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it; North American tourists, bound down by their practical world view, are able to place those members of the disintegrating tribes they may have seen in their travels among these once-living walls, unaware of the moral distance separating them, since only the semi-indigenous spirit of the South American can grasp the subtle differences.”

WorldMayAbleSpiritDifferencesViewsMoralWallMembersEssentialsDistanceSouthBoundsSakePracticalsRuinsWanderLandscapeSubtleDreamerTribesIndigenousSpectacularTouristsSuppliesSeparatingWorld ViewFortressesBackdrop
Author:Che Guevara
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“It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.”

ThinkingFeelsTryingBelieveMightLawResponsibilityExpressionJudgingHigherStandardsExpectationsLawyerContrarySuperiorsVainUncertaintySubtleGrantsFondnessHigher Standards
Author:William P. Young
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“Behind their eyes the hope was sickening and in many, dead. They lived from event to event with a subtle terror of the gap between, filling up their lives with distractions to avoid the emptiness where curiosity should have been.”

ShouldHas BeensEyeBehindsEventsShould HaveCuriosityTerrorEmptinessSubtleGapsDistractionFillingShould Have BeenFilling Up
Book:The Great and Secret Show: The First Book of the Art
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“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

KnowsMenStatesOrderSpeakFearUnitedViewsUnited StatesFieldsBreathsOrganizedSubtleProtestNew WorldConspiracyElitesCommerceBankingBankersDisobedienceNew World OrderWorld OrderCondemnationCivil DisobedienceState GovernmentFederal ReserveConspiracy TheoryWorld GovernmentNwoSecret SocietyUnited States GovernmentPower And ControlOne World GovernmentHead Of StateNew GovernmentPowerful ManConspiringAgenda 21Power GovernmentControlling GovernmentWorld PoliticsControlling Power
Author:Woodrow Wilson
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“Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.”

IfsMenMeanReasonLightAgeSpiritualFatherChurchSinPathShareIllusionMiseryBurdenTemptationContemplationRejectionSubtleUrgesFrankAuschwitzUnrealitySpiritual LightChurch FathersDachau
Author:Thomas Merton
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“What makes the voice pathetic is that it doesn't know what kind of people it's reaching. Us. No one hears it, except us. This Age wanted heroes. It got us instead: carefully constructed, but immobile. Subtle but, unfit to take up the burden of the times. It happens. A whole generation of washouts. History says stand up, and we totter and collapse, weeping, moved, but not sufficient.”

PeopleKnowsKindWholeHappensAgeWantedVoiceGenerationsHeroMovedBurdenSufficientReachingSubtleCollapsePatheticWeeping
Book:A Bright Room Called Day
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“Milo refreshed Rae's drink and said, Talk to her. You need to get it off your chest." Then Milo turned to me and said, "Why don't you try a more subtle approach." "I demand you tell me your troubles," I said to my sister. "You're not as funny as you think you are," Rae replied.”

ThinkingNeedsTryingSaidTroubleDrinkDemandApproachSubtleChestsMy Sister
Book:Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again
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“This is the most immediate fruit of exile, of uprooting: the prevalence of the unreal over the real. Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.”

RealDreamPastEnemyAirSlaveryFruitRedemptionParadiseSubtleCosmicExileUnrealImprobableFuture DreamsUprooting
Book:If this is a Man: Remembering Auschwitz
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“With subtle and finely-wrought temperaments it is always so. Their strong passions must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man, or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and the sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.”

MenDiesPassionStrongSorrowDestroyedSubtleShallowTemperamentBruisesPlenitudeStrong Passion
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray (Diversion Classics)
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“O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you; As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.”

KnowsLoveMayLittlesDreamSidesWalksRoomsFireSakeSubtleWhere You AreElectricYour Side
Book:Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1860-1867
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“Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows' wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle risings that find expression in the empty trees.”

LittlesCountryEarthWaterSpaceTreeChangedExpressionSpringSingingEmptyRisingUnexpectedSubtleTendernessAccentsReplacedGreyLanesMeadowsSoftnessHarshness
Author:Rainer Maria Rilke
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“I said, I know why you’re afraid to fight with me.” "And why is that?” If he flexed again, I’d have to implement emergency measures. Maybe I could kick some sand at him or something. Hard to look hot brushing sand out of your eyes. "You want me.” Oh boy. "You can’t resist my subtle charm, so you’re afraid you’re going to make a spectacle out of yourself.” "You know what? Don’t talk to me.”

IfsKnowsWantLooksSaidHardEyeFightingBoysHotKicksCharmSandSubtleWant MeEmergenciesTalk To MeYou Want MeBrushingDon't Talk To Me
Book:Magic Strikes
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“One thing I know is that it is a bad idea to marry someone who had bad parents. If they hated their mother, if they were hated by their mother or father, your marriage will pay for it in ways both obvious and subtle. When the chips are down, when someone is sick or loses their job or gets scared, the old patterns will kick in and he will treat you the way he treated his mother or the way she treated him.”

IfsKnowsWayIdeasJobsMotherFatherParentLosesPayOne ThingTreatsSickPatternsScaredObviousTreatedHatedKicksSubtleChipsBad IdeasBad Parent
Author:Ellen Gilchrist
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“He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.”

IfsLoveSaidIndividualNationsMoralColorGreenCuriousArtisticSubtleTemperamentDecadenceArtistic Temperament
Book:Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis
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“Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever. This already dead iventory will not be resurrected in one's memory.”

IfsFeelsHeartDoeMemoriesBreakForeverHappenedObjectsTearsReaderSorrowReflectionBreathsLeavingDearCornersPitySpotsWanderSubtleAbandonedPartingTremblingUnlovedAbodeHolding Back
Book:The Gift
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“There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that - perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims.”

RealSoulMomentsAgeFormJoyPassionLeftPleasureViewsCommonInfluenceYouthStrangeExerciseActivityProjectsIntellectualAimSubtleSatisfyingVulgarPerfumeTemperamentGraciousFluidReal Joy
Book:The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays
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“The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.”

WayEnoughHelpingCertainUniverseSpaceCommonCuttingAwarenessComplicatedCrueltyTendenciesGenerousSubtleMassiveGravityFabricCommodityDefiniteWovenSpace Time
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“There was a warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.”

IfsWantSoulSelfWantedLastsShameAcknowledgePhrasesMotiveSubtleRealisingWarmthFuryMistrustWant Him
Book:The Essential D.H. Lawrence
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