Obscurity Quotations

The mind's passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell.

To morrow, I believe, is to be an eclipse of the sun, and I think it perfectly meet and proper that the sun in the heavens, and the glory of the Republic should both go into obscurity and darkness together.

It is human nature to instinctively rebel at obscurity or ordinariness.

One must choose between obscurity with efficiency, and fame with its inevitable collateral of bluff.

Donald had reached its further edge, and could hear the rush of the stream from the deep obscurity of the abyss below, when there rose from the opposite side a strain of the most delightful music he had ever heard.

Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.

I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity.

I entirely agree with you about the obscurity of Mrs Browning's line about the stars. It is far-fetched. She wanted to express something which she found beyond expression.

The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

When you work with web design companies in San Francisco, you end up with a bunch of twenty-somethings who have their own cultural peculiarities, including obscurity for its own sake. You give those guys a website for a banking institution and they screw it up, because they are designing for themselves.

As a student in Beijing in 1996, I sometimes marveled at the sheer obscurity of the movies that somehow made it onto pirated discs in China.

I guess I just always imagined that I was going to die, like, somehow on top. I was going to, like, go out in some sort of blaze of glory. I never thought about sort of fading into obscurity. And I've worked so hard at having a life, an identity, in obscurity and finding peace with that.

The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds.

I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity.

Leave bands, go back to obscurity if I choose to, without a great sense of loss of security because it's all been based on the fact that I did it on my own or was doing, enjoying doing it on my own in the first place.

I always knew that it was going to be an uphill climb to replace Letterman from complete obscurity with no experience, but I think I had to go through it to know exactly what a titanic effort that was going to be.

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

Regardless of Bill Clinton's politics or personal life, he grew up in obscurity and was elected to the presidency - twice. Don't take that away from him, because then you take it away from every other kid in America sitting out there in a school bus with a big dream.

When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility.

Never try to impress people with the profundity of your thought by the obscurity of your language. Whatever has been thoroughly thought through can be stated simply.

Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character.

One piece that looked like it was doomed - we were going to shoot it in this hotel hallway, and it was just my character musing that maybe this was just the beginning of something, maybe we were on our way out of obscurity or something, and then we were setting up to do it - and we just had to get this other shot.

My first movie ever was 'Breaking Away.' I stumbled into an incredible part in a movie that was incredible to be a part of. Peter Yates, the director, became a lifelong friend. He sort of plucked me from obscurity and gave me a life.

I think I would like the sort of job where you can work away in obscurity to try and improve things, without being caught up in the political maelstrom.

It is natural to every man to wish for distinction, and the praise of those who can confer honor by their praise, in spite of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart; but as eminence can be but the lot of a few, patience of obscurity is a

Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time.

Dread not events unknown, and be not downhearted, for the fountain of the water of life is involved in obscurity.

I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity.

Permit us to labor on in obscurity, and at the end of twenty years you may hear from us again.

The obscurity is more often in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject.

I never knew how good it is to be unknown until now. The last time I was unknown I was too busy trying to become known to realize the advantages of obscurity.

It may be hard to monetize fame, but it is impossible to monetize obscurity.

The big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.

Obscurity often brings safety.

Obscurity brings safety.

Nothing helps an artist's career more than a little death 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?

The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them.

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.

The oil market once again has been pulled out of potential obscurity by another host of geo-political events.

I want people to re-evaluate me. My dream would be to make films like Clint Eastwood did... You have to be a self-starter out here at a certain point. It's important to take the reigns or, otherwise, you can be regaled to obscurity so quickly.

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.

A bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read.

How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

I hate set dissertations,--and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your readers conception.

I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity.

Obscurity is the kingdom of error.

Obscurity is the realm of error.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

It's a funny thing about cities: Some have brief, bright moments of cultural and political dominance, decades- or centuries-long spells when they seem the center of their particular nation, or region, or empire... only to later fall into obscurity and disrepair, never to regain their former glory.

You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.

People newly emerged from obscurity generally launch out into indiscriminate display.

Critics should help people see for themselves; they should never try to define things, or impose their own explanations, though I admit that if... a critic's explanations serve to increase the general obscurity, that's all to the good.

Still, the change is nearly indescribable - going from total obscurity to walking down a street in New York and having everybody turn and look; to feel the temperature of a room change when I walked in.

And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth...

Many things prevent knowledge, including the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life

As touching the gods, I do not know whether they exist or not, nor how they are featured; for there is much to prevent our knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life.

A government official is a man who has risen from obscurity to something worse.

Not everyone can be as successful a performer as myself, who gave 10 great performances the first time I ever did comedy, and then toiled in obscurity for years.

Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is.

Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.

How often we see the greatest genius buried in obscurity!

How often the highest talent lurks in obscurity.

When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.

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.

Fame is fickle, but Obscurity is usually faithful to the end.

Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity.

Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.

Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment.

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.

I wanted to drag Shakespeare from obscurity. I've been a fan my whole life.

There's nothing more horrifying than the possibility or the idea that you will just fade away into obscurity.

Avoid an unusual and unfamiliar word just as you would a reef.

If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help.

We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.

Artists are the best theologians. They feel things that are true before theologians can jargonize them into obscurity.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity. [Lat., Majorum gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala in occulto patitur.]

So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity.

The problem for most artists isn't piracy, it's obscurity.

Obscurity is a bigger problem for authors than piracy.

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

Obscurity is never a virtue.

Men seek fame and high places only to learn that they were happier in obscurity

I mean, you hear the word 'globalization' over and over and over again. Globalization, globalization, globalization. Rarely has a word gone so directly from obscurity to meaninglessness without any intervening period of coherence.

For the most part, executions happen in obscurity. If people did hear about executions, if they were publicized, even televised, I fear more would enjoy them than be repelled by them.

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?

And all these questions I ask myself. It is not in a spirit of curiosity. I cannot be silent. About myself I need know nothing. Here all is clear. No, all is not clear. But the discourse must go on. So one invents obscurities. Rhetoric.

The spirit is often concealed within matter to such an extent that few people are generally capable of perceiving it.

As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious.

The lowest people are generally the first to find fault with show or equipage; especially that of a person lately emerged from his obscurity. They never once consider that he is breaking the ice for themselves.

The enemy of a writer is not controversy but obscurity.

Obscurity and competence - that is the life that is best worth living

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition

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.