Quotes About Obscurity

It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to extraordinary characters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz might now expire in obscurity.

A celebrity these days is somebody you've never heard of

In the last generation, this country produced one of the most eminent men of science in the whole world. His name was quite unknown among us while he lived, and it is still unknown. Yet I may say without too great exaggeration that when I heard it mentioned in a professional assembly in the Netherlands two years ago, everybody got down under the table and touched their foreheads to the floor. His name was Josiah Willard Gibbs .

What was the use of seeing things clearly if the only thing clarity brought was a new and deeper darkness?

Draba plucks no heartstrings. Its perfume, if there is any, is lost in the gusty winds. Its color is plain white. Its leaves wear a sensible woolly coat. Nothing eats it; it is too small. No poets sing of it. Some botanist once gave it a Latin name, and then forgot it. Altogether, it is of no importance – just a small creature that does a small job quickly and well.

But you I want to look at until your face fades from my fear, like a bird stepping away from the sharp edges of night. — Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. by Yvette Siegert, from "Paths of the Mirror," Extracting the Stone of Madness (New Directions; Bilingual edition, May 17, 2016)

Las sombras esconden varios puntos oscuros que giran y giran entre tus ojos mi pluma retarda el TÚ anhelante mi sien late mil veces TU nombre

But you I want to look at until your face fades from my fear, like a bird stepping away from the sharp edges of night. — Alejandra Pizarnik, trans. by Yvette Siegert, from Extracting the Stone of Madness: "Paths of the Mirror

Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to the more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with a truly obsessive zeal, along with being tear-gassed and hearing gunshots fired in anger.

The black sky just kept assuming deeper shades of black until, suddenly, it had blacked itself out entirely.

The first to which this character ought to be applied, is the House of Commons in Great Britain. The history of this branch of the English Constitution, anterior to the date of Magna Charta, is too obscure to yield instruction. The very existence of it has been made a question among political antiquaries. The earliest records of subsequent date prove that parliaments were to sit only every year; not that they were to be elected every year.

Here, then, are three sources of vague and incorrect definitions: indistinctness of the object, imperfection of the organ of conception, inadequateness of the vehicle of ideas. Any one of these must produce a certain degree of obscurity.

Here lies … /Who did nothing/Went nowhere/Was loved by nobody.

let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

While passing through an obscure nook of Notre Dame cathedral, Victor Hugo noticed the Greek work for fate carved in the stone. He imagined a tormented soul driven to engrave this word. From this seed sprang his monumental novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Almost as essential to poetry, and equally as regards poetry of the loftiest and poetry of the lowliest kind, is lucidity, or clearness of expression. No poet of much account is ever obscure, unless the text happens to be corrupt.

The most generous critic, if he is to be discriminating and just, cannot, let me say again, allow that any verse which is profoundly obscure or utterly unmusical, no matter how intellectual in substance, deserves the appellation of poetry.

Ricky Washington is from a Baptist church in Miami, Florida, and he can pretty much sing anything. We just started working it up at soundcheck, and holy smokes, it's just great! The audience gets to singing. So there's that stuff to do - find some old obscure R&B stuff - because we can do it justice.

My mom watches really obscure stuff on IFC. She's a real comedy fan. She knows everything that's going on.

A cult following is a nice way of saying very few people like you.

I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you.

I like dark places.

Francis Webb is easily our greatest poet and one of the greatest poets in the world but he's hardly ever mentioned.