Quotes About Subtlety

Don't make too many waves until you're ready to strike. Don't appear too innocent, but don't appear too smart either. Be average.

Do the truth quietly without display.

her smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it.

Her face was not young, but it was simple; it was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes which were not bright, and a great deal of hair which was not 'dressed,' and long fine hands which were--possibly--not clean.

But James, as an artist, was deeply suspicious of what gave him pleasure, or indeed satisfaction. In his own complex sensibility, there was an ambiguity about most things, and this moved him towards subtlety when he approached character, drama, and scene, and nudged him towards many modifying subclauses when he wrote a sentence. Nothing came to him simply.

He had none of that wish to appear deep which is at the bottom of most forms of fatuity; he was perfectly willing to pass for decently superficial; he only aspired to be continuous. When you were not suitably shallow this presented difficulties; but he would have assented to the proposition that you must be as suitable as you can and that a high use of subtlety is in consuming the smoke of your inner fire. THE FIRE WAS THE GREAT THING, NOT THE CHIMNEY.

She stood there looking, consciously and rather seriously, at Mr. Ransom; a smile of exceeding faintness played about her lips—it was just perceptible enough to light up the native gravity of her face. It might have been likened to a thin ray of moonlight resting upon the wall of a prison.

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you can.

An uncommon prudence is habtual with the subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide.

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.—Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind? Subtilize it.

Power is like being a lady... if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Perhaps it's an accident of nationality, but the English treasure subtlety and appreciate not having everything spelled out for them, while Americans want everything made apparent.

Sometimes immense things, like war and death and aging, are best seen from the corner of the eye and written of only obliquely, with tremendous lightness.

Dorothy L. Sayers is absolutely my favorite The reason she stands above Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham is because she was so subtly aware of the lot and trials of women of her decade.

That we take plant words in through our nose or our skin or our eyes or our tongue instead of our ears does not make their language less subtle, or sophisticated, or less filled with meaning. As the soul of a human being can never be understood from its chemistry or grammar, so cannot plant purpose, intelligence, or soul. Plants are much more than the sum of their parts. And they have been talking to us a long time.

Nothing matches the holiness and fascination of accurate and intricate detail.

How to be one up—how to make the other man feel that something has gone wrong, however slightly.

Ale Perez I can't imagine why anyone would choose to be male. It's just so unsubtle. Women only have to deal with breasts, which are what they are. They don't suddenly stand up whenever they feel like it and begin pointing at something they want. Augie Hwong You SO don't know what you're missing.

Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues.

it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.

A lot of those little things that I really like doing are just moments of cool articulation, just little moments of phrasing that probably go over everybody's head.

Boss, she's a _Dragon_. They don't _believe_ in assassination. They consider it a _crime_. If you go up to her and--" "Kragar," I interrupted, "I never said that I was going to go up to her and say, 'Aliera, I'm trying to assassinate this guy, how would you like to help set him up?' Give me credit for a little finesse, all right?

I'm interested in the things that might seem slight or amusing but which I feel have a kind of profundity.