Quotes About Nuance

Nature is subtle and complex.

It is that little bit of extra attention that makes all the difference.

Nothing is ever black and white, Nila. You should know that bu now. Its all how you survive the grey." -Kes

Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It's a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault.

Poetry is the report of a nuance between two moments, when people say, 'Listen!' and 'Did you see it?' 'Did you hear it? What was it?'

Politics is a thing that only the unsophisticated can really go for.

if you cannot get it all right, don't get it all wrong

There is no idea so right that there is nothing wrong about it, And nothing so wrong that there isn't something right about it. ~William Blake~

A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/...the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.

An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful. I propose to use the word in an extended sense, and shall think relevant to my subject any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language.

As for the immediate importance of the study of ambiguity, it would be easy enough to take up an alarmist attitude, and say that the English language needs nursing by the analyst very badly indeed. Always rich and dishevelled, it is fast becoming very rich and dishevelled…

Thus a poetical word is a thing conceived in itself and includes all its meanings; a prosaic word is flat and useful and might have been used differently.

perhaps intelligence should not be looked at as a single gauge, like a speedometer, but as a full array of tachometers, odometers, altimeters, and the rest.

Simplicity is a kind of transparency in which subtle nuances can have outsize effects.

When we see ourselves and our world defined by stereotypical expectations, the very nature of our engagement alters. And our susceptibility to this transformation of behavior may diminish our capacity to appreciate important nuance in our surroundings. In a world where we're looking for 'familiar' or 'similar' through favorable lenses and seeing 'unfamiliar' as somehow lesser, we are at risk of being blind to the self-evident.

Nowadays, it's almost impossible for anyone living in a liberal democracy to say they are against freedom – at least in the abstract (in practice, of course, our ideas are usually much more nuanced). This is one of the lasting legacies of the Enlightenment and of the American and French Revolutions.

If we frame every situation in terms of right and wrong, we never have to wrestle with complexity; if we define the world in narrow bands of black and white, we don't have to parse out endless shades of gray.

Spécial" is one of those elusive French words that means something (or someone) is...peculiar. The use of it is one of the rare times that the French are noncommittal about their opinions.

Speciàl" is one of those elusive French words that means something (or someone is...peculiar. The use of it is one of the rare times that the French are noncommittal about their opinion.

Spécial is one of those elusive French words that means something (or someone) is…peculiar.

It's impossible to explain to a Yankee what 'tacky' is. They simply have no word for it up north, but my God, do they ever need one.

God dwells in the details.

In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!

God was in the details.