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Subtlety Quotes

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Subtlety Quotes

“It was not imprisonment, supposedly, but simply that all Manchus needed special protection because they were related to the royal house and so were part of officialdom. Actually it was a luxurious imprisonment, for this was the Chinese way of conquering enemies. When the Manchu invasion of 1644 was successful in a military sense-and almost any people could invade China successfully, it seemed, in a military sense-China did not resist. The people were apparently passive, mildly curious, and even courteous to their conquerors. The real struggle came afterwards, but so subtly that the conquerors never knew they were being conquered. The technique of victory was that as soon as the invaders laid down their arms the philosophical but intensely practical Chinese persuaded them to move into palaces and begin to enjoy themselves. The more the new rulers ate and drink, the better pleased the Chinese were, and if they also learned to enjoy gambling and opium and many wives, so much the better. One would have thought that the Chinese were delighted to be invaded and conquered. On the pretext of increased comfort, the men shoes were persuaded to live in especially pleasant part of any city, and to be protected by special guards against rebellious citizens. This meant they were segregated and since they were encouraged to do no work, the actual and tedious details of the government were assumed performed by the chinese, ostensibly for them. The result of this life of idleness and luxury was that the Manchus generally became a fit while the Chinese administered the government. The Manchus were like pet cats and the Chinese kept them so, knowing that when the degeneration was complete, a Chinese revolutionary would overthrow the rotten structure. Revolution was in the Chinese tradition and every dynasty was overthrown, if not by foreign invasion, then by native revolution.”

PleasureRevolutionRoyaltySubtlety
Book:My Several Worlds
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“It was not imprisonment, supposedly, but simply that all Manchus needed special protection because they were related to the royal house and so were part of officialdom. Actually it was a luxurious imprisonment, for this was the Chinese way of conquering enemies. When the Manchu invasion of 1644 was successful in a military sense-and almost any people could invade China successfully, it seemed, in a military sense-China did not resist. The people were apparently passive, mildly curious, and even courteous to their conquerors. The real struggle came afterwards, but so subtly that the conquerors never knew they were being conquered. The technique of victory was that as soon as the invaders laid down their arms the philosophical but intensely practical Chinese persuaded them to move into palaces and begin to enjoy themselves. The more the new rulers ate and drink, the better pleased the Chinese were, and if they also learned to enjoy gambling and opium and many wives, so much the better. One would have thought that the Chinese were delighted to be invaded and conquered. On the pretext of increased comfort, the Manchus were persuaded to live in especially pleasant part of any city, and to be protected by special guards against rebellious citizens. This meant they were segregated and since they were encouraged to do no work, the actual and tedious details of the government were assumed performed by the chinese, ostensibly for them. The result of this life of idleness and luxury was that the Manchus generally became a fit while the Chinese administered the government. The Manchus were like pet cats and the Chinese kept them so, knowing that when the degeneration was complete, a Chinese revolutionary would overthrow the rotten structure. Revolution was in the Chinese tradition and every dynasty was overthrown, if not by foreign invasion, then by native revolution”

PleasureRebellionRoyaltySubtlety
Book:My Several Worlds
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“Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.”

WorldLoveLifeHeartFactsWisdomTruthPeaceChangeConsciousnessKnowledgePowerMysteryHonestyInformationMovementHumilityPrideGeniusEnlightenmentIntelligenceAwakeningNuclearArrogancePurityShockActivistResurrectionDeadNot KnowingElectricityFlexibilityGentlenessRevivalExtremismProgressionChange The WorldSubtletyWeaponReviveSaveAwakenParalysisHeart AttackMotionKnow It AllAsleepBombEnlightenCrypticRestoreCurrentExplosionRigor MortisKnow It AllsWorld ChangerCardiac ArrestJoltDefibrillator
Book:Healology
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“Beyoncé spins her own bittersweet narratives into art. “I’ma rain, I’ma rain on this bitter love/Tell the sweet I’m new,” she sings on “Freedom.” As bell hooks writes of Beyoncé’s Lemonade in her essay “Moving Beyond Pain,” to be truly free, we must choose beyond simply surviving adversity, we must dare to create lives of sustained optimal well-being and joy. In that world, the making and drinking of lemonade will be a fresh and zestful delight, a real life mixture of the bitter and the sweet, and not a measure of our capacity to endure pain, but rather a celebration of our moving beyond pain.” If Will Cotton’s paintings—- resplendent with pure, idealized fantasy—- are the sweetness we lazily dream of, Walker’s A Subtlety is the sweetness we actually live: rearing up through centuries of hurt and exploitation, planting its feet in the good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain. It crystallizes across the surfaces of our imperfect lives, and makes us shine.”

ArtSubtletyBeyonceSongs LyricsWhen Life Gives You LemonsBittersweetness
Book:The Best American Food Writing 2019
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“Conspicuous lesbians abounded—it's hard to miss teenage queers who have yet to figure out subtlety—and, though I can’t deny that I like my girls a little rough, most leaned so heavily on the dyke archetype that they looked like a Timberland truck crashed into Lilith Fair.”

LgbtqTeenageQueerLesbianSubtletyBisexualDyke
Book:Between Kay and You: A Bisexual Girl's Cumming-of-Age Confession
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“It began to dawn on me then ... all the time I was being reminded of something, I didn’t know quite what, and I was lying awake every night trying to remember what it was, and even now I can’t say much about it, but it is like what the other Rachel, and Olga, and Simon, used to tell me of how the three were taught by people just coming past, and how they learned things without there being actual lessons and timetables most of the time. I keep meeting people, and all of them seem to know at once who I am and what to tell me or where to take me. That is very peculiar. Something peculiar is going on, but I don’t know what.”

SubtletyExperiential Learning
Book:Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta
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“Where will this all end up? Will we completely lose our ability to be private, respectful, subtle? Will romance die? Often I long for a simpler time when break ups weren't made a trillion times worse by photo tagging, and rather than spelling it out for people you could be irritated by something and not feel as though you had to voice your gripe with convenient hashtags such as #dogaccidents, #cake and #snow in case it becomes a trending topic.”

TrendsSocial NetworkingSubtletyToo Much InformationHashtagsSimpler
Book:It
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“He said he'd teach her the important things, starting with the most important thing of all, the correct way to make tea and rice, so tea wasn't overbrewed and the rice wasn't overcooked. He said: You want to make food forget Indian way. Indian's system is like American system, everything overdone. They have no subtle. He sent her to buy octopus. She brought the tentacles home in a bag of ice and cut them into thin slices, at a sharp angle. She put the sliced octopus in a saucepan with ginger and green onions and added a black bean paste. He told her to touch the octopus to the flame and serve. But she let the dish cook for a good five minutes until the flesh was tough and rubbery. You overdid, he told her. Old Chinese saying, you don't need take off your pant to fart.”

SubtletyOverdoing ItOverdoing
Book:Narcopolis
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“Mostly everyone in the living room jumped up at the sound of his voice. The words that came out of his mouth did not fully register with most of them. A few were still half asleep and wondering why he decided to appoint himself the position of human alarm clock. Unfortunately, there was no time for subtlety and no time for breakfast.”

SleepAwakeUnexpectedJason MedinaThe Manhattanville IncidentAn Undead NovelSubtletyStartled
Book:The Manhattanville Incident: An Undead Novel
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“Once there was Louis Armstrong blowing his beautiful top in the muds of New Orleans; before him the mad musicians who had paraded on official days and broke up their Sousa marches into ragtime. Then there was swing, and Roy Eldridge, vigorous and virile, blasting the horn for everything it had in waves of power and logic and subtlety - leaning into it with glittering eyes and a lovely smile and sending it out broadcast to rock the jazz world.”

WorldEyeBeautifulRocksMusicianLogicMadJazzWaveLovelyBrokeOfficialsMarchSwingsMudNew OrleansHornsVigorousSubtletyArmstrongBroke UpRagtime
Book:On the Road
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“The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. 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. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations-in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”

PeopleKnowsWellsFactsSeemsDifferencesInterestingSituationStupidIntelligentHandleIgnorantEducatedLatterContradictorySuspiciousStraightforwardSubtletyAmbiguousWell EducatedBaffled
Author:Michael Moore
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“A mathematician of the first rank, Laplace quickly revealed himself as only a mediocre administrator; from his first work we saw that we had been deceived. Laplace saw no question from its true point of view; he sought subtleties everywhere; had only doubtful ideas, and finally carried the spirit of the infinitely small into administration.”

FirstsIdeasSpiritWorkViewsSawsMathematicsMathPoint Of ViewAdministrationMathematicalMediocrityMathematicianMediocreDeceivedDoubtfulSubtletyAdministrators
Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
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“I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.”

EndsMoralBreakIssuesGroupsPossibilityPositionSolutionsOppositesComplexesExtremesTendenciesOpponentsVulgarSubtletyAmusedContinuumDichotomyAcknowledgment
Book:The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
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