Subtle quotes
121 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside subtle — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"One should be a painter. As a writer, I feel the beauty, which is almost entirely colour, very subtle, very changeable, running over my pen, as if you poured a large jug of champagne over a hairpin."
"The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is."
"The force of nonviolence is infinitely more wonderful and subtle than the material forces of nature, like electricity."
"We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves."
"The mathematical sciences wield their particular language made of digits and signs, no less subtle than any other."
"Subtle is the Lord. Malicious, He is not."
"The novel is the highest example of subtle interrelatedness that man has discovered."
"The reactions of the human heart are not mechanical and predictable but infinitely subtle and delicate."
"As subtle and universally pervasive as gravity, love touches everything, and enhances everything it touches."
"As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating."
"Nought is there in wealth That serves as bulwark 'gainst the subtle stealth Of Destiny and Doom."
"It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious"
"Energy is a very subtle concept. It is very, very difficult to get right."
"The subtle are the causes, the gross the effects."
"Though we are politically free, we are hardly free from the subtle domination of the West."
"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!"
"Sex is an extremely subtle undertaking, unlike going to the department store on a Sunday to buy a thermos."
"Affected simplicity is a subtle imposture."
"The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us."
"Subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium."
