Obscurity quotes
122 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside obscurity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"For though we very truly hear that the kingdom of God will be filled with splendor, joy, happiness and glory, yet when these things are spoken of, they remain utterly remote from our perception, and as it were, wrapped in obscurities, until that day."
"Why, oh why must one grow up, why must one inherit this heavy, numbing responsibility of living an undiscovered life? Out of the nothingness and the undifferentiated mass, to make something of herself! But what? In the obscurity and pathlessness to take a direction! But whither? How take even one step? And yet, how stand still? This was torment indeed, to inherit the responsibility of one’s own life."
"All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability."
"He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence."
"Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence."
"It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code... obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence."
"If it took Labouchere three columns to prove that I was forgotten, then there is no difference between fame and obscurity."
"I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?"
"One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity."
"This is what I see, and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and everywhere I see nothing but obscurity. Nature offers me nothing that is not a matter of doubt and disquiet."
"You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate."
"John Major is what he is: a man from nowhere, going nowhere, heading for a well-merited obscurity as fast as his mediocre talents can carry him."
"One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity."
"Wir tappen im Labyrinth unsers Lebenswandels und im Dunkel unserer Forschungen umher: helleAugenblicke erleuchten dabei wie Blitze unsernWeg. We grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning."
"Do they [the publishers of Murphy] not understand that if the book is slightly obscure it is because it is a compression and thatto compress it further can only make it more obscure?"
"It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer's feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him during his working years."
"Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity."
"What we have not had to decipher, to elucidate by our own efforts, what was clear before we looked at it, is not ours. From ourselves comes only that which we drag forth from the obscurity which lies within us, that which to others is unknown."
"The public easily confuses him who fishes in troubled waters with him who draws up water from the depths."
"The public, too, has to make an effort in order to understand the writer who, though he renounce complacent obscurity, cannot always express his new-hidden thoughts lucidly and according to accepted models."
