Top 100 Quotes About Subtlety
#1. Faces in the everyday impress us as hives of subtlety. That impression must be sharpened in photography, which discloses only a microsecond of the face's behaviour, immersed in a social process.
Max Kozloff
#2. There's always the joy of the performance and fine-tuning new interpretations. Over the years, we've all grown as musicians, so obviously there is a lot of subtlety that wasn't there in the first place.
Chris Squire
#3. This is without subtlety, he said, as if to himself. His voice was cool and pleasant. His every move was part of a dance, a dance that never ended, even when his body was still, at rest, but for all the power it suggested, there was also a humility, an open simplicity.
William Gibson
#4. People lost the capacity of using their brain. It's all about the label. Not about the labels showing but subtlety of the labels.
Barbara Hulanicki
#5. Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.
T. S. Eliot
#6. I like very dry humor. I don't like things that are over the top. I like subtlety. I like things that are nonchalant. I like characters that are sort of monotone and based in dark comedy.
Emily Rios
#7. After Theda Bara appeared in A Fool There Was, a vampire wave surged over the country. Women appeared in vampire gowns, pendant earrings, and even young girls were attempting to change from frank, open-eyed ingenues to the almond-eyed, carmine-lipped woman of subtlety and mystery.
Mary Pickford
#8. I've learned by watching films that inspired me and people who inspired me like Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I love old school acting. I love subtlety, and I also love being spontaneous, and that's really what works for me.
Alex Pettyfer
#9. Music with all its subtlety has immense power to unite people, spread love and bring peace in the world!
Sanchita Pandey
#10. The prince is blind to subtlety. He knows his own ignorance and stupidity so is ever suspicious of others, especially when they say things he does not understand. One cannot negotiate when dragged in the wake of emotions.
Steven Erikson
#11. Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.
David Brin
#12. There is a classic esthetic which romantics often miss because of its subtlety. The classic style is straightforward, unadorned, unemotional, economical and carefully proportioned. Its purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known.
Robert M. Pirsig
#13. Playing (Serena) it always felt like playing a steamroller. No subtlety, no finesse, just raw, loud power. To respect this style of play was always a bit tough for me, but of course I had to, because the rules of tennis dont state that having a beautiful game is required to become No. 1.
Martina Hingis
#14. I sit up talking till daybreak with the young people and we have almost Athenian evenings, Athenian, I mean, only in their intellectual subtlety and refinement.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#15. In movies, there are some things the French do that Americans are increasingly incapable of doing. One is honoring the complexities of youth. It's a quiet, difficult undertaking, requiring subtlety in a filmmaker and perception and patience from us.
Wesley Morris
#16. I had a real stage school voice and I could do loud things, but it's not about being loud, it's about sensitivity and subtlety in music. You can do so much more with a quiet voice than with a belter.
Amy Winehouse
#17. When playing big festivals, I tend to play big, over the top techno tracks, like hands in the air songs that make sense being played in front of 30,000 people. I steer away from subtlety in the interests of big bombastic dance music.
Moby
#18. Myth isn't about factual or historical truth, but about a deeper truth. In ancient times, people saw myth in a very different light - as a vehicle that can transmit and carry a subtlety and richness of experience that simply cannot be conveyed by linear, conceptual forms of language.
Adyashanti
#19. I am a big one for subtlety and empathy. My dad was softly spoken and didn't carry his honours and accomplishments for everyone to see.
Kyle MacLachlan
#20. I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures.
Mira Nair
#22. The talent for self-justification is surely the finest flower of human evolution, the greatest achievement of the human brain. When it comes to justifying actions, every human being acquires the intelligence of an Einstein, the imagination of a Shakespeare, and the subtlety of a Jesuit.
Michael Foley
#23. I like songs with a lot of heart and feeling and subtlety.
Norah Jones
#24. The Silvertop and the Goldtop both had subtlety where it was needed but lots of definition as well. I liked the different voicings of the distortion/fuzz elements.
Dweezil Zappa
#26. He took pains to avoid self-depreciation, self-mockery, ambiguity, irony, subtlety, vulnerability, a civilized world-weariness and a tragic sense of history
the very things, he says, that are most natural to him.
Don DeLillo
#27. I generally find subtlety a waste of time.
Cindy Gerard
#28. Ayrton Senna was an extraordinary racing driver. His skills, craft, subtlety and courage were of such magnitude that he dwarfed his generation of drivers.
Ron Dennis
#29. When you falter, all eludes.
This is a seasick way,
this almost/never touching, this
drawing-off, this to-and-fro.
Subtlety stalks in your eyes,
your tongue knows what it knows.
I want your secrets - Iwillhave them out.
Seasick, I drop into the sea.
Adrienne Rich
#30. I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.
T. S. Eliot
#31. It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
Isaac Asimov
#32. A good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it almost seem like a live teacher.
Bertrand Russell
#33. Work/Loaf Ratio" ... I have spent fourteen years perfecting ... I won't bore you with a long-winded explanation of the "W/LR" save to say that it is an algebraic formula of such complex numeric subtlety that it can be understood only by mathematicians and hobos.
Gary Reilly
#34. As Han once told me, "Stealth and subtlety work well, but for making lasting impressions, a blaster does just fine.
Michael A. Stackpole
#35. Interesting. Claws and teeth and ferocity mixed with the subtlety to manipulate creatures larger than itself. A worthy creature.
Katherine Applegate
#36. If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.
Pico Iyer
#37. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#38. 'Star Trek' is notorious for looting the more thoughtful work of writers for their striking effects, leaving behind most of the thought and subtlety.
Gregory Benford
#39. Jazz is improvisation and syncopation, with resilience and flow, with earthy elegance, nuance and subtlety, with the integrity of individual expression within (usually) a group context, with true democracy in action.
Greg Thomas
#40. I will have you know that I have the brightest mind and the keenest wit. Why, people are often astounded by the perspicacity of my discourse and the subtlety of my insight!" He
Sherry Thomas
#41. England gave me a chance. It's a very individual country where people have a personal style; they don't all follow a trend. The subtlety and wit of England is incredible, and they are very creative.
Mario Testino
#42. She says that what you did was a cry for help."
"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.
Holly Black
#43. Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name.
Alice Meynell
#44. At first I'd tried subtlety, but as it happened, Dane's mind - as fierce and strong and powerful as he was - had about the level of subtlety as a locomotive that went off the tracks and then fell off a cliff. And then hit a tree and a nitroglycerine truck.
Lynn Red
#45. Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.
Alan Cumming
#46. His name tasted of fire and wings, of curling smoke, of subtlety and strength and the rasping whisper of scales. He eyed me and said stiffly, Don't land yourself into a boiling-pot, and as difficult as you may find it, try and present a respectable appearance.
Naomi Novik
#47. It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort.
Joyce Carol Oates
#48. He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety.
Oscar Wilde
#50. Subtlety is the mark of confidence and is thus by far the hardest thing for a writer to achieve.
Noah Lukeman
#51. Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.
Charles Caleb Colton
#52. And wished with all her heart that she wasn't so tired, wished that a broken wrist would radiate violent pain instead of this strange numbing ache that was exhausting her by its subtlety and consistency.
Dorothy Gilman
#53. Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.
Okakura Kakuzo
#54. Try a little subtlety in self-defense; it'll help, you'll find out.
John Ashbery
#55. O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
Sun Tzu
#56. To pull off successful attacks in debates, you have to execute with nuance and subtlety. It has to be artful.
Mark McKinnon
#57. Our repartee would be rich with subtlety and sarcasm, as smart and funny as midcareer Woody Allen. Our fucking, like Werner Herzog, serious and perplexing.
Ottessa Moshfegh
#58. Pastries ... can only be appreciated to the full extent of their subtlety when they are not eaten to assuage our hunger, when the orgy of their sugary sweetness is not destined to full some primary need but to coat our palate with all the benevolence of the world.
Muriel Barbery
#59. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of the exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by the land as it is by genes.
Barry Lopez
#60. An image system is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion.
Robert McKee
#61. Poetry can communicate the actual quality of experience with a subtlety and precision unapproachable by any other means.
F.R. Leavis
#62. As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace.
John Owen
#63. Transported to a different culture, thought often loses its subtlety and can even rampage like a wild beast.
Minae Mizumura
#64. Atty's eyes rested on Darby with all the subtlety of a dog watching his food bowl being filled!
Tricia Murphy
#65. Subtlety chases the obvious up a never-ending spiral and never quite catches it.
Rex Stout
#66. It's not a country of articulate people, sophisticated people. There's too little subtlety. Men and women don't enjoy each other very much in Australia. I don't find very many men sexy in Australia. Of course, I'm married and out of it, but still.
Judy Davis
#67. Subtle! Subtlety is bourgeois. Brecht us that when he popped drama's cherry. He fucked drama until it stopped being subtle, like a lady, and started being useful, like a whore.
David Burr Gerrard
#68. I have nothing against bombastic music, but when it comes to making albums, I'd prefer to make music that has a sort of vulnerable subtlety to it.
Moby
#69. Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're dead.
Jaya
#70. The hand of a woman may be soft, but her reach is long. And its subtlety does not make it any less effective!
Meredith Duran
#71. There's the conventional wisdom, of which I have none, where you get a record deal, you get a publicist, you get a campaign, and you do the tour, but none of that adds up to things like nuance and subtlety and dynamic.
Chris Robinson
#72. Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.
Robert A. Heinlein
#73. In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design.
Tracy Kidder
#74. Some audiences can shake and bang their heads on the stage to riffs all night long, but subtlety is an art that must be mastered if you're going to be remembered.
Robert Plant
#75. There's no seduction any more, diary. No subtlety. No tidy-yourself-up in this world. No need for personal pride. There's just the things you're prepared to do - for survival, for fulfillment, for whatever-the-hell-it-is you really need - and the things you're not.
Simon Spurrier
#76. Naturally, women are drawn to a man who understands the subtlety of emotions, and they know I'm a passionate man. But the reason I try to keep myself in shape is so I can sing better, not to look good.
Andrea Bocelli
#77. Symbolism perhaps is a bit in your face, and I've tried my best to control that as best I can as I've grown older and thought that one could approach something with a little more subtlety.
John Schlesinger
#78. The Japanese, if I understand them, are masters of the unsaid and the unstated, of subtlety and ambiguity, all of which constitute powerful stimulants to the imagination.
Semir Zeki
#80. I think the players, I put in the book for example that we should go back to wood rackets, probably they laughed at me, I'm a dinosaur, but I think that you see these great players, have even more variety and you see more strategy, there'd be more subtlety.
John McEnroe
#81. Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.
Alexander McQueen
#82. Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes.
Will Durant
#83. I love Tokio Hotel and their music, their makeup, their hairstyles and their subtlety.
Lady Gaga
#84. A great sea fog is not homogenous
its density varies: it is honeycombed with streets, it has its caves of clear air, its cliffs of solid vapour, all shifting and changing place with the subtlety of legerdemain.
Henry De Vere Stacpoole
#85. He found himself weeping.
Not for the future or for the emperor. These were the tears of a man who saw before himself a masterpiece. True art was more than beauty; it was more than technique. It was not just imitation.
It was boldness, it was contrast, it was subtlety.
Brandon Sanderson
#86. What's the light of Heaven look like on earth? Like sunlight streaming through clouds in the tackiest garage sale painting you ever saw. Really, it's so beautiful it's embarrassing. No subtlety whatsoever.
Tad Williams
#87. That night Fay became a woman, making a secret of her pain, intent on saving her happiness with Albert, on showing wisdom and subtlety.
Anais Nin
#88. Subtlety sometimes eludes me. Why not just hit the nail on the head?
Paul Levine
#89. The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads. Laughter, praise, honors, money, and the love of beautiful girls will be your only reward.
Edward Abbey
#90. Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.
Frantz Fanon
#91. I love the subtlety and tonal range of the acoustic guitar.
Dan Fogelberg
#92. Is it not a pity when some stylistic subtlety is lost without trace by the reader's inattention?
David Richards
#93. True restoration takes patience, subtlety, skill, and grace.
Paul David Tripp
#94. 115.Something kinda sad about the way that things have come to be. Desensitized to everything. What became of subtlety? How can this mean anything to me..If I really don't feel anything at all?
Maynard James Keenan
#95. Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there's a lot of subtlety. That's what I'm proud of.
Ben Folds
#96. Unfortunately, public debates do not have much room for subtlety. The audience wants a quick thrust at your opponent, not a slow and convoluted series of moves. Whenever Obama uses subtleties in discussing a complex issue, he gets creamed.
Alan Lightman
#97. The neocortex allows for the subtlety and complexity of emotional life, such as the ability to have feelings about our feelings.
Daniel Goleman
#98. It was a defeat, resorting to crude threats in a game of subtlety, but sometimes one must sacrifice a battle to win the war.
Mark Lawrence
#99. Sorry, pigtails, but subtlety isn't an option anymore.
T.A. Miles
#100. Most of the films I myself like don't do very well. Every director, he has a choice, whether to go for subtlety and try to articulate every minute detail, or to go for the broad strokes and hope that the people will fill in between the lines. I tend to go for the broader strokes.
Sylvester Stallone
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
