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Subtle Quotes

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Subtle Quotes

“Walden - all his books, indeed - are packed with subtle, conflicting, and very fruitful discoveries. They are not written to prove something in the end. They are written as the Indians turn down twigs to mark their path through the forest. He cuts his way through life as if no one had ever taken that road before, leaving these signs for those who come after, should they care to see which way he went.”

IfsWayShouldBookEndsCareTurnsPathTakenCuttingWrittenProveDiscoveryMarkLeavingForestsSubtleTwigs
Book:The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1912-1918
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“Clipper took a relatively simple problem, encryption between two phones, and turned it into a much more complex problem, encryption between two phones but that can be decrypted by the government under certain conditions and, by making the problem that complicated, that made it very easy for subtle flaws to slip by unnoticed. I think it demonstrated that this problem is not just a tough public policy problem, but it's also a tough technical problem.”

ThinkingMadeTwoProblemGovernmentCertainEasySimpleConditionsPolicyToughComplexesPhonesComplicatedMade ItSubtleFlawsSlipsUnnoticedPublic PolicyEncryptionComplex Problems
Author:Matt Blaze
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“Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look out at the stars. This practice should answer the question..... The master settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands, and ultimately her mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.”

ShouldMindLooksNightUniverseStarsAnswersPracticeImagineSkyMastersCalmDesertSettlingSubtleConnectingNight SkyStars In The Sky
Author:Laozi
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“[Photography] has become more and more subtle, more and more modern, and the result is that it is now incapable of photographing a tenement or a rubbish heap without transfiguring it. Not to mention a river dam or electric cable factory: in front of these, photography can now only say, How beautiful!”

BeautifulResultsModernFrontsPhotographyRiversSubtleFactoriesElectricIncapableCablesRubbishDamsTenements
Book:Understanding Brecht (New Edition)
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“When you say documentary, you have to have a sophisticated ear to receive that word. It should be documentary style, because documentary is police photography of a scene and a murder ... that's a real document. You see, art is really useless, and a document has use. And therefore, art is never a document, but it can adopt that style. I do it. I'm called a documentary photographer. But that presupposes a quite subtle knowledge of this distinction.”

ShouldArtRealUseStyleScenePhotographyArt IsEarsMurderPolicePhotographerUselessDistinctionSubtleSophisticatedDocumentsDocumentaries
Book:Walker Evans and Jane Ninas in New Orleans, 1935-1936
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“I must admit to a personal lack of sympathy with women who have themselves photographed in black stockings, garter belts and boots, with bare breasts, bananas, and coy, come-hither glances.... A woman using her own face and body has a right to do what she will with them, but it is a subtle abyss that separates men's use of women for sexual titillation from women's use of women to expose that insult.”

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Author:Lucy R. Lippard
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“The humor of jazz is rich and many-sided. Some of it is obvious enough to make a dog laugh. Some is subtle, wry-mouthed, or back-handed. It is by turns bitter, agonized, and grotesque. Even in the hands of white composers it involuntarily reflects the half-forgotten suffering of the negro. Jazz has both white and black elements, and each in some respects has influenced the other. It's recent phase seems to throw the light of the white race's sophistication upon the anguish of the black.”

EnoughHandsLightSeemsSufferingTurnsBlackWhiteRaceHalfLaughingRichDogElementsJazzForgottenObviousBitterSubtleComposerPhasesAnguishGrotesqueSophisticationWryWhite Race
Author:Bix Beiderbecke
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“Photography has always been capable of manipulation. Even more subtle and more invidious is the fact that any time you put a frame to the world, it's an interpretation. I could get my camera and point it at two people and not point it at the homeless third person to the right of the frame, or not include the murder that's going on to the left of the frame. You take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo. There's an infinite number of ways you can do this: photographs have always been authored.”

PeopleWorldWayPersonsTwoFactsLeftCan DoNumbersDegreesPhotographyCapableThirdsMurderInfiniteCamerasPhotographSubtleManipulationInterpretationHomelessThird Person
Author:Joel Sternfeld
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“Our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marketing, in the lifetimes of many generation; these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of thee survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon-the most favoured alternative method.”

ThinkingMenLongMatterFoundSoundCommonGenerationsArmsSurvivalOrdinaryTestsMethodLifetimeMarketingDrawingPracticalsTheeAlternativesDistinctionSubtleChairsAfternoonStood UpSurvival Of The FittestConnexion
Author:J. L. Austin
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“We can set no limit to human potentialities; all that is best in man can be bettered; it is not a question of producing a highly efficient machine, ... but of quickening all the distinctly human features, all that is best in man, all the different qualities, some obvious, some infinitely subtle, which we recognize as humanly excellent.”

MenHumansDifferentQualityLimitsMachinesObviousExcellentFeaturesSubtleEfficientHuman PotentialQuickening
Author:Ronald Fisher
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“There is onslaught is the accelerating momentum of technologies and instrumental mentalities that are exterminating spontaneity, undermining love and common decency. It's a thief of time and includes all the palpable and subtle violations of body, mind, and spirit done in the name of science, government, enterprise, progress, and profit.”

MindDoneBodyGovernmentSpiritNamesCommonTechnologyProgressProfitEnterpriseSubtleMentalityThievesDecencyViolationMomentumSpontaneityUnderminingCommon Decency
Author:Stephanie Mills
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“My all-time favorite topic in positive psychology is the study of positive emotions. I'm fascinated by how pleasant experiences, which can be so subtle and fleeting, can add up over time to change who we become. I'm especially excited these days about investigating how positive emotions change the very ways that our cells form and function to keep us healthy.”

WayFormEmotionStudyPsychologyHealthyFunctionAddExcitedAll TimeCellsThese DaysPleasantSubtleFascinatedTopicsFleetingPositive PsychologyInvestigatingPositive EmotionsAll Time Favorite
Author:Barbara Fredrickson
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“The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow.”

MenTwoCommunicationMountainMessagesFlowCurrentsProtectionSensesPsychologicalSubtleDispositionExtensionsConnectingRopeWireTransmitTactileNylon
Book:The Eiger Sanction: A Novel
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“Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists.”

PeopleWellsProcessAbilitySourceFineSkillsMethodTortureSubtleInvestigationGiftedColleaguesPlaygroundsDegeneratesCultivatingQuick Fixes
Author:Vladimir Bukovsky
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“The more subtle thing is more speculative. The world is well past its long-term carrying capacity for human beings living a European, much less an American, lifestyle predicated on planned obsolescence. International economic growth is largely a matter of accelerated movement of materials from mines and forests to the dump. Instead of saving and buying decent furniture we can pass on to our children, we charge our credit cards for shaped heaps of sawdust and glue that fall apart in less than three or four years.”

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Author:Denis Hayes
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“You [can] become part of someone else's narrative. Every once in a while I would get people asking me questions like, "If your husband is a Muslim, then why haven't you converted to Islam?" Interestingly enough, almost every person who asked me that was a Sunni, and it was their not-so-subtle way of implying that my Shiite husband was a bad Muslim for letting his infidel wife run around unconverted.”

PeopleIfsWayPersonsEnoughRunningWifeHavensHusbandAskingIslamNarrativeSubtleYour HusbandInfidelImplying
Author:Annia Ciezadlo
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