Obscurity Quotes

1. "If you desire the path of sincerity, develop a love for obscurity. Flee from the clatter and clinks of fame. Be like the roots of a tree; it keeps the tree upright and gives it life, but it itself is hidden underneath the earth and eyes cannot see it."
Author: Abdullah Ibn Al Mubarak

2. "The Tree and the Reed"Well, little one," said a Tree to a Reed that was growing at its foot, "why do you not plant your feet deeply in the ground, and raise your head boldly in the air as I do?""I am contented with my lot," said the Reed. "I may not be so grand, but I think I am safer.""Safe!" sneered the Tree. "Who shall pluck me up by the roots or bow my head to the ground?" But it soon had to repent of its boasting, for a hurricane arose which tore it up from its roots, and cast it a useless log on the ground, while the little Reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.Obscurity often brings safety."
Author: Aesop

3. "Deep" to me connotes intellectual rigor, not fashionable obscurity or the unnecessarily academic."
Author: Alex Payne

4. "Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts."
Author: Austin Kleon

5. "The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise."
Author: Brennan Manning

6. "The Cosmos extends, for all practical purposes, forever. After a brief sedentary hiatus, we are resuming our ancient nomadic way of life. Our remote descendants, safely arrayed on many worlds throughout the Solar System and beyond, will be unified by their common heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that, whatever other life may be, the only humans in all the Universe come from Earth. They will gaze up and strain to find the blue dot in their skies. They will love it no less for its obscurity and fragility. They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of all our potential once was, how perilous our infancy, how humble our beginnings, how many rivers we had to cross before we found our way."
Author: Carl Sagan

7. "Human life without knowledge of history is nothing other than a perpetual childhood, nay, a permanent obscurity and darkness. -Philip Melanchthon"
Author: Carter Lindberg

8. "My nun, which is how I think of her, was the most profound witness for God's love I've ever encountered in this world. She was a magnet for lost souls, a petite fortress of strength and unconditional love. What this sprightly, silly, lovely woman did from the obscurity of a faded convent in Rust Belt Chicago was to fulfill in a passionate, tireless way the supreme commandment of Jesus' gospel every day of her life."
Author: Cathleen Falsani

9. "The pristine virtue is nothing but absolute absurdity, utter obscurity and sheer imbecility."
Author: Chandrashekar

10. "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?"
Author: Charlotte Brontë

11. "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."
Author: D.H. Lawrence

12. "While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he showed at the same time the imperfections of the mechanical philosophy, so agreeable to the natural vanity and curiosity of men; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain."
Author: David Hume

13. "The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind. And though these researches may appear painful and fatiguing. It is with some minds as with some bodies, which being endowed with vigorous and florid health, require severe exercise, and reap a pleasure from what, to the generality of mankind, may seem burdensome and laborious. Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needs be delightful and rejoicing."
Author: David Hume

14. "I grew up in an age where women's tennis did not have similar prizes to men, and they played in complete obscurity, really, compared to the men's game."
Author: David Stern

15. "If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results."
Author: Emily Bronte

16. "Live in obscurity--lathe biosas (???e ß??sa?)"
Author: Epicurus

17. "There could be no eldest son for her, and younger sons were indelicate things, necessary, but not to be much spoken of. Younger sons had none of the privileges of obscurity; it was their plain duty to remain hidden until some disaster perchance promoted them to their brother's places, and, since this was their function, it was desirable that they should keep themselves wholly suitable for succession."
Author: Evelyn Waugh

18. "People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher- a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-current of criticism was him away. My lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It's the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over."
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

19. "The door was locked and Alexia, resourceful as she was, had not yet learned to pick locks. Though she mentally added it to her list of useful skills she needed to acquire along with hand-to-hand combat and the recipe for pesto. If her life were to continue on its present track which after 26 years of obscurity, now seemed to mainly involve people trying to kill her, it would appear that acquiring a less savory skill set might be necessary. Although she supposed pesto making ought to be termed 'more savory'."
Author: Gail Carriger

20. "The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds."
Author: George Allen Sr.

21. "But, sir, isn't death a dreadful thing?" asked Malcolm."That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread. But if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendor--a splendor probably too keen for our eyes to receive.""But there's the dying itself; isn't that fearsome? It's that I would be afraid of.""I don't see why it should be. It's the lack of a God that makes it dreadful, and you would be greatly to blame for that, Malcolm, if you hadn't found your God by the time you had to die."
Author: George MacDonald

22. "Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about rafters?"
Author: Henry David Thoreau

23. "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."
Author: Hugh Miller

24. "In this new year, may you have a deep understanding of your true value and worth, an absolute faith in your unlimited potential, peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, the confidence to let go when you need to, acceptance to replace your resistance, gratitude to open your heart, the strength to meet your challenges, great love to replace your fear, forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you, clear sight to see your best and true path, hope to dispel obscurity, the conviction to make your dreams come true, meaningful and rewarding synchronicities, dear friends who truly know and love you, a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe, the humility to remain teachable, the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is, the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow, the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth, and the courage to learn to be still."
Author: Janet Rebhan

25. "Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,Say, maiden, wilt thou go with meThrough the valley-depths of shade,Of night and dark obscurity;Where the path has lost its way,Where the sun forgets the day,Where there's nor life nor light to see,Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!Where stones will turn to flooding streams,Where plains will rise like ocean waves,Where life will fade like visioned dreamsAnd mountains darken into caves,Say, maiden, wilt thou go with meThrough this sad non-identity,Where parents live and are forgot,And sisters live and know us not!Say, maiden; wilt thou go with meIn this strange death of life to be,To live in death and be the same,Without this life or home or name,At once to be and not to be -That was and is not -yet to seeThings pass like shadows, and the skyAbove, below, around us lie?"
Author: John Clare

26. "We didn't try to force God's hand or do the "I just heard a sermon about David and Goliath so I need to quit my job right this second" leap of faith that's so popular in Christian circles. We took our time with the decision, like another guy in the Bible, named Jesus. He spent thirty years in obscurity before he started his adventure. Often, we're not willing to spend thirty minutes in preparation, never mind thirty years, especially when we come home from a conference and find our day jobs waiting for us on Monday morning. I'm not sure why Christians sometimes think the maturation of our own missions will be radically shorter than that of Jesus. But it happens and in the past I've certainly wanted to take wild, unplanned, possibly-not-inspired-by-God leaps of faith."
Author: Jon Acuff

27. "No, my discovery was sex: of sex, by sex, fo r sex. This new-uncovered country, prohibited by the fascism of sensitivity, a land where I could celebrate the death of my former self, where the pain of nostalgia could so easily be made to blend into obscurity amidst the overwhelming joy of the moment. Nira/Sussa"
Author: Julian Darius

28. "When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven."
Author: Lao Tzu

29. ". . . But then you will want to put that {publication} behind you right away. You will want to recover the obscurity you swim best through. You've got eternal youth there. You'll never be satisfied. If you get lucky, it will be a darkness so pure it will mirror not the 'self,' but the mysterious 'other."
Author: Louis B. Jones

30. "As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our day."
Author: Margaret Atwood

31. "Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living."
Author: Mark Twain

32. "Fame is a devil; obscurity is an Angel! Stay away from me, Devil; Come near to me, Angel!"
Author: Mehmet Murat Ildan

33. "No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods."
Author: Michael D. O'Brien

34. "Mennonites formed themselves in Holland five hundred years ago after a man named Menno Simons became so moved by hearing Anabaptist prisoners singing hymns before being executed by the Spanish Inquisition that he joined their cause and became their leader. Then they started to move all around the world in colonies looking for freedom and isolation and peace and opportunities to sell cheese. Different countries give us shelter if we agree to stay out of trouble and help with the economy by farming in obscurity. We live like ghosts. Then, sometimes, those countries decide they want us to be real citizens after all and start to force us to do things like join the army or pay taxes or respect laws and then we pack our stuff up in the middle of the night and move to another country where we can live purely but somewhat out of context."
Author: Miriam Toews

35. "God's extraordinary work is most often done by ordinary people in the seeming obscurity of a home and family."
Author: Neal A. Maxwell

36. "Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity."
Author: Neil Gaiman

37. "Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist, or what form they might have, for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life."
Author: Protagoras

38. "I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power, that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted, and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity, but I find that thy will knows no end in me, and when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart, and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders."
Author: Rabindranath Tagore

39. "It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code. Most of these jokers don't even want to use language you and I know or can learn . . . they would rather sneer at us and be smug, because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If indeed they are driving at anything--obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence."
Author: Robert A. Heinlein

40. "Battle against obscurity"
Author: Robert Henri

41. "It was as if we were having two different conversations. Which wasn't that surprising after all, as we were clearly having two entirely different experiences of breaking up. His was soft, cushioned; Jude and his friends had broken his fall. Mine was cold, empty and bereft. I was freefalling in space and time, with nobody standing by to stop me hurtling headlong into obscurity."
Author: Ruth Mancini

42. "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."
Author: Steven Soderbergh

43. "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."
Author: Tallulah Bankhead

44. "Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity."
Author: Thomas Hardy

45. "Mutuality has tumbled into undeserved obscurity by the primacy our society places on the art of the deal. The prevailing myth reaching most contemporary ears is this: relationships are 50-50. When one person does a nice thing for the other, he is entitled to an equally pleasing benefit – the sooner, the better, under the terms of this erroneous dictum. The physiology of love is no barter. (208)"
Author: Thomas Lewis

46. "We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style."
Author: Tom Stoppard

47. "Men love jargon. It is so palpable, tangible, visible, audible; it makes so obvious what one has learned; it satisfies the craving for results. It is impressive for the uninitiated. It makes one feel that one belongs. Jargon divides men into Us and Them….Obscurity is fascinating. One tries to puzzle out details, is stumpred, and becomes increasingly concerned with meaning – unless one feels put off and gives up altogether.Those who persevere and take the author seriously are led to ask about what he could possibly have meant, but rarely seem to wonder or discuss whether what he says is true."
Author: Walter Kaufmann

48. "No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe."
Author: William Kingdon Clifford

49. "One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff."
Author: William McFee

50. "What is thy body but a swallowing grave,Seeming to bury that posterityWhich, by the rights of time, thou needs must haveIf thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain."
Author: William Shakespeare

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