"Subtlety" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he presented so strong a contrast to Iago. Look at "mine Ancient" closely, and see, that, with all his subtle craft, he was a coarse-mannered brute, of gross tastes and grovelling nature, without a spark of gallantry, and as destitute of courtesy as of honor. We overrate his very subtlety; for we measure it by its effects, the woful and agonizing results it brings about; forgetting that these, like all results, or resultants, are the product of at least two forces,—the second, in this instance, being the unsuspecting and impetuous nature of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... reflexion: that the sensible world is that which we perceive by our several senses; and that nothing is perceived by the senses beside ideas; and that no idea or archetype of an idea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any laborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety of reason, or tedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the most strenuous advocate for Atheism. Those miserable refuges, whether in an eternal succession of unthinking causes and effects, or in a fortuitous concourse of atoms; those wild imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, and Spinoza: ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral illusion, and a cunning effect of light and shade, so colored and contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the above explanation do not hit the truth of the process, I can suggest ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... and most vigorous English, not only broad in its power, but often intense in its description of character and situation, and always singularly adequate to the thought. Probably no novelist knew the English character— especially in the Midlands— so well as she, or could analyse it with so much subtlety and truth. She is entirely mistress of the country dialects. In humour, pathos, knowledge of character, power of putting a portrait firmly upon the canvas, no writer surpasses her, and few come near her. Her ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... with the high priest at their head (because no one else had the right to stand in the inner court between temple and altar), he reveals a trait that is characteristic, not only of himself, but also of the entire so-called historico-critical school, who exert their whole subtlety on case after case, but never give themselves time to think matters over in their connection with each other; nay, rather simply retain the traditional view as a whole, only allowing themselves by way of gratification a number of heresies. It is almost impossible to believe that Hitzig, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... tastes were cosmopolitan, and now that his method was determined he dismissed M. & T. stock from his mind. He knew Tillman City, and more to the point, he knew Michael Blaney, Chairman of the Council Finance Committee. Finesse would not be needed, subtlety would be lost, with Blaney, and so Mr. McNally was prepared to talk bluntly. And on occasion Mr. McNally could be ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... a crimson blush suddenly spread over her countenance, "if I have concealed any thing from you, it was not from craft, nor subtlety, nor ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... friend, it is too true! And no wonder that he is so bold, and full of joyful subtlety. For is he not prevailing, in spite of all our efforts? You know there are at least four hundred members of what rightly calls itself the Church of England—for certainly it is not the church of Christ—in Boston ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... Not much subtlety was asked of Miss KYRLE BELLEW as Duval's lover, Berinthia; but she seemed to have learned a little more sincerity and to depend less upon the prettiness of her face and her frocks. Of Miss MIRIAM LEWES as Orange Moll something ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... inclined to put pen to paper of late, I thought this evening that some small memento might be left, as it were, at this point of the valley, just to say, Here were the footsteps of a weary halting pilgrim at such a time—one that brought no store of food or raiment, no supply of wisdom or subtlety, no provision for the way, nothing but wounds and weaknesses, household images, secret sins; but by favor of unspeakable long-suffering, continuing unto this day—and, as she would fain hope, not deserted. A. troop of thoughts doth grievously overcome her, and faint is her hope ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... our house. Perchance some love-matter drove him to fly. Certain it is that in his wandering among strangers he had come to be a mighty handy, wide-awake fellow, with much that was good in him, inasmuch as with all his subtlety he had kept ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Party and believe the New Era can be distilled of talk and tricks; and they looked like mean animals compared to that staunch conservative Narayan Singh, who, nevertheless, is not without his own degree of subtlety. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... Philosophy, or listen to some of the more radical of the Western teachers preaching this philosophy. The majority of the latter lack the courage of the Hindu teachers in carrying their theories to a logical conclusion, and, consequently they veil their teachings with metaphysical subtlety. But a few of them are more courageous, and come out into the open and preach their ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... on Christian, she had changed more than had Larry. It was as though that extra-worldly endowment of her childhood having ceased to manifest in external ways, had turned its light inwards. The power of hearing what others could not hear, had faded, but a subtlety of mind, a clarity, a sort of pondering, intellectual self-consciousness (that had no kinship with that other form of self-consciousness that is only inverted self-conceit) had taken the place of those voices that she had once refused to deny ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... unsafe. So they heard, nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, as far as their country is concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 'my Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, ambitious, unscrupulous; but the craft of Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale—the subtlety of Ashley, seem hardly conceivable either ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... faculties, especially those of sight and locomotion; but the Ornithomyia seems an exception, its dependent life having had a contrary effect; the extreme sensitiveness, keenness of sight, and quickness of the bird having reacted on the insect, giving it a subtlety in its habits and motions almost without a parallel even among free insects. A man with a blood-sucking flat-bodied flying squirrel, concealing itself among his clothing and gliding and dodging all over his body with so much ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... girl of indomitable courage and optimism, in fact. He liked her immensely. And so Tootles paired off with Martin and had innumerable opportunities of putting forward the challenge of sex. She took them all, but with the most carefully considered subtlety. She descended to nothing obvious, as was to be expected from one of her type, which was not famous for such a thing as self-restraint. She paid great attention to her appearance and kept a close watch on her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... a good deal," explained Captain Leezur gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... woman's failing was a fact as obvious as that her desire was only to be friendly; brief reflection persuaded Sally that it was to her own interest neither to snub nor to neglect this gratuitous source of information. With some guilty conceit, befitting one indulging in all most Machiavellian subtlety, she let fall an extravagantly absent-minded "Yes?" and was rewarded, quite properly, with a garrulous history of her predecessor's career, from which she disengaged only two profitable impressions: that the staff of servants was devoted to their mistress, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... visited Geneva with him, and heard the disputations of their most learned doctors, which both he and Budaeus disliked for their hard judgments both of God and man, as much as they admired them for their subtlety, being themselves, as became Italian students, Platonists of the school of Ficinus and Picus Mirandolensis. So wrote Master Frank, in a long sententious letter, full of Latin quotations: but the letter never reached the eyes of him for whose delight ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Bulger, "if you want to follow that line." During the short pause which ensued, he thought and felt intensely. Working under the direction of a mind infinitely his superior for intrigue and subtlety, he had instruction to play gently upon the Norcross contrariety, the Norcross habit of rejecting advice. This, if ever, seemed the time. With a bold hand, he laid his counter upon the board. "Just one thing to ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... materially the same from fabled Circe down to Lola Montes, or some less famous syren whose subjects are not kings. The same passions that in ancient days broke out in heaven-defying crimes; the same power of beauty, intellect, or subtlety; the same untamable spirit and lack of moral sentiment are the attributes of all; latent or alert as the noble or ignoble nature may predominate. Most of us can recall some glimpse of such specimens of Nature's work in a daring mood. Many of our own drawing-rooms have held illustrations ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... sufficed? Why was any sign necessary to indicate one who was so well known? The supposition that the devil compelled him to superfluous villainy in order that he might be secured with greater certainty and tortured with greater subtlety is one that can hardly be entertained except by theologians. It is equally difficult to understand why Jesus submitted to such an insult, and why Peter should not have smitten down its perpetrator. Peter was able to draw his sword, and it would have been safer and more natural to ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... questions. The questions of a good teacher should result in students asking questions both of people and of books. These last three types of questions are perhaps the most difficult of all. Because of their complexity and subtlety they often miss fire and fail of their purpose. Properly handled they are among the most powerful tools a teacher has. The type of question used must vary, not only with the particular group of children, and the type of lesson, but also with the subject. Questions that would be the best ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... wealth of his limited fancy, and his power of resolving it into well-ordered design, and presenting it with strange economy of means, invested these puppets of his with a vividness which is often startling. With greater force and subtlety, if with less refinement and grace, than Leech—though not, like him, the genial sketcher of the genial side of things—he has recorded, in the five or six thousand designs that make up the sum of his contribution, the character of "the classes" of our ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... school that still retains fresh hold of the British public. But with all respect to his most loyal disciple, Mr. Hugh Thomson, one doubts if any successor has equalled the master in the peculiar subtlety of his pictured comment upon the bare text. You have but to turn to any of his toy books to see that at times each word, almost each syllable, inspired its own picture; and that the artist not only conceived the scene which the text called ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... said to us, 'Whence come ye?' And we were perplexed for an answer; but I said, 'Those ye saw with us are rogues: we know them not. As for us, we are singers, whom they would have taken to sing to them, nor could we win free of them, save by subtlety and fair words, and they have but now left us.' They looked at Ali and Shemsennehar and said to me, 'Thou hast not spoken sooth; but if thy tale be true, tell us who you are and whence you come and in what quarter you dwell.' I knew not what to answer, but Shemsennehar ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... faction of the White and Red, into which they have been thenceforth divided, till Panurgus, the eighteenth king from the Conquest, was more by their favor than his right advanced to the crown. This King, through his natural subtlety, reflecting at once upon the greatness of their power, and the inconstancy of their favor, began to find another flaw in this kind of government, which is also noted by Machiavel namely, that a throne supported by a nobility is ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the subtlety of the view. 'That can hardly be called fair,' he said. 'Still, I did mean some of it for them, for the friends we meant to ask would not have ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... traditions of Europe. In fact, it is more than doubtful whether the jackal of the East be not the creature alluded to, in the various passages of the Sacred Writings which make allusion to the artfulness and subtlety of the "fox." ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... with childlike simplicity of manner; yet nowhere in these pages have we had a finer example of the subtlety which, characteristic of the speaker, seemed inspiration rather than study. He knew from general report how religion dominated his host, and on the spur of the moment, thought to pique curiosity with ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... which was the wealthiest of all the cities of Etruria. Now this seemed to the men of Veii a shameful thing, and one that was not to be endured. So they began to take counsel how they might take this enemy by subtlety, and perceived, not without joy, that the Fabii grew ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... too weary and sceptical to oppose the one "intensely practical man." To Bonaparte's trenchant reasons and incisive tones the theorist could only reply by a scornful silence broken by a few bitter retorts. To the irresistible power of the general he could only oppose the subtlety of a student. And, indeed, who can picture Bonaparte, the greatest warrior of the age, delegating the control of all warlike operations to a Consul for War while Austrian cannon were thundering in the county ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... comparative littleness of man, leading to and bound up with the impotence of the will, human dependence, the necessity of Divine grace,—Augustinian in spirit, but going beyond Augustine in the subtlety of metaphysical distinctions and dissertations on free-will election, and predestination,—unfathomable, but exceedingly attractive subjects to the divines of the seventeenth century, creating a metaphysical divinity, a theology of the brain rather than of the heart, a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... with the popular and national movements of his countrymen. He had practised at the Irish bar, and had become the greatest advocate in the Irish law courts, and was thus enabled to combine with all the fire and energy of a born popular leader the subtlety and craft of a trained and practised lawyer. O'Connell was one of the greatest orators of a day when political oratory could display some of its most splendid illustrations. He had a commanding presence, indeed a colossal form, and a voice which was marvellous alike for the strength and the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... searching glance, and although there was nothing aggressive about him, he had force. Yet she did not think him clever; she had met men whose mental powers were much more obvious, but when she tried to contrast them with him, he came out best. After all, character took one further than intellectual subtlety. ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... postage-stamps. I know that it is customary to-day for writers to sneer at this pursuit. But surely they have forgotten its variety and subtlety; its demand on the imagination; how it makes history and geography live, and initiates one painlessly into the mysteries of the currency of all nations. Then what a tonic it is for the memory! Only think of the implications of the annual price-catalogue! ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... to me," he said, turning and speaking with the bluntness of a boy without subtlety of speech. "I never'll speak ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... poor, sickly, devoid of experimental gifts, and unfitted by nature for accurate observation, but strong almost beyond competition in speculative subtlety ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Doctor; "call for your volunteers—or for one volunteer at a time. You see, with their cunning and subtlety they know beforehand that we must be ready to do anything to get at the stores, and consequently they keep the strictest watch, with spearmen ready to let fly at any poor wretch who ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... than attempt to seize this Abellino, who seems to have entered into a compact with Lucifer himself: who is to be found everywhere and nowhere; whom so many have seen, but whom no one knows; whose cautious subtlety has brought to shame the vigilance of our State inquisitors, of the College of Ten, and of all their legions of spies and sbirri; whose very name strikes terror into the hearts of the bravest Venetians, and from whose dagger I myself am not safe upon my throne. I know well, Flodoardo, how much ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... the hollowness of the great world, and had a low opinion of human nature. In fact, she was a woman of the French memoirs—one of those charming and spirituelles Aspasias of the boudoir, who interest us by their subtlety, tact, and grace, their exquisite tone of refinement, and are redeemed from the superficial and frivolous, partly by a consummate knowledge of the social system in which they move, and partly by a half-concealed ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... subtlety of her performance, quite one half the audience now rose instinctively, all eyes being fixed on the strange evolutions of this whirling, flying thing that seemed possessed by the very devil of dancing! The King at last attracted, leaned slightly ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... to be deep subtlety Mr. Wrenn drew her away to the barroom, and these two children, over two glasses of ginger-ale, looked their innocent and rustic love so plainly that Mrs. Arty and Tom sneaked away. Nelly cut out a dance, which she had promised to a cigar-maker, and ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Rarity. — N. rarity, tenuity; absence of solidity &c. 321; subtility[obs3]; subtilty[obs3], subtlety; sponginess, compressibility. rarefaction, expansion, dilatation, inflation, subtilization[obs3]. vaporization, evaporation, diffusion, gassification[obs3]. ether &c. (gas) 334. V. rarefy, expand, dilate, subtilize[obs3]. Adj. rare, subtile, thin, fine, tenuous, compressible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... negotiations for peace until these prisoners were restored, and that if they were not sent back in safety the consequences would be most serious for the Chinese government. But even at this supreme moment of doubt and danger, the subtlety of Chinese diplomacy would have free play. Prince Kung was young in years and experience, but his finesse would have done credit to a gray-haired statesman. Unfortunately for him, the question had got beyond the stage for discussion: the English embassador had stated the one condition on which negotiations ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... itself either to Schlegel or Coleridge, who take the mental rather than the moral disposition to task. Schlegel, with some asperity, speaks of "a calculating consideration that cripples the power of action;" and Coleridge, with more subtlety, applies Hamlet's antithesis of thought and resolution to the elucidation of his own character, concluding that Hamlet "procrastinates from thought." Gervinus, while following Schlegel as to "the ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... Roman decline to affect all the European mind—even the German mind—for many centuries. But at the same time this evil effect was counter-balanced by the ineradicable strength and virtues of the Northern barbaric blood. This sacred Teutonic blood it was which brought into Western Europe the subtlety of romantic conceptions, the true lyric touch in poetry, the deep reverence which was (till recently) the note of their religion, the love of adventure in which the old civilization was lacking, and a vast respect for ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... methods of the arts results in the formulation of broad principles by means of which judgments of taste can be appraised and a community of taste achieved. These principles, they would admit, are more difficult of application than the simpler logical rules, owing to the greater subtlety and complexity of art, yet, when found, have an equal ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... illustrious prelate of the Anglican Church who published recently a book on the origin of evil, concerning which M. Bayle made some observations in the second volume of his Reply, speaks with much subtlety about the pains of the damned. This prelate's opinion is presented (according to the author of the Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, June 1703) as if he made 'of the damned just so many madmen who will feel ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... which, the parents say, "has been of about as much yearly educational value to the boys as the eight months of school," and in contrast with which "the concentrative methodic unities of Ziller seem artificial, and, as Bacon said of scholastic methods, very inadequate to subtlety of nature," Dr. Hall sums up ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... stupendous triumph of the human understanding. The reason of man soared to the loftiest flights that it has ever attained. It cast its searching eye into the most abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous intellects of the world. It exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtlety ever raised. It originated and it carried out the boldest speculations respecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. It established most important psychological truths. It created a method for the solution of the most abstruse questions. It went on, from point to point, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... libitum, ad infinitum, is never old, never stale, never out-of-date. And as we sometimes seek rest from the brilliant audacities and complex passions of Wagner or Tschaikowsky in the tender simplicity of some ancient English air, so we occasionally turn with relief from the wit and insight and subtlety of our modern novelists to the old uncomplicated tales of faerie or romance, and find them after all more moving, more tender, even more real, than all the laboured realism of these photographic days. And here before us is of ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... Besides, the critic just isn't a plain man: if he were, pray, what would he be doing in his neighbour's garden? You're anything but a plain man yourself, and the very raison d'etre of you all is that you're little demons of subtlety. If my great affair's a secret, that's only because it's a secret in spite of itself—the amazing event has made it one. I not only never took the smallest precaution to do so, but never dreamed of ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... this side the border-line of the human. Our Old Home, a book of charming papers on England, was published in 1863. Manifold experience of life and contact with men, affording scope for his always keen observation, had added range, fullness, warmth to the imaginative subtlety which had manifested itself even in his earliest tales. Two admirable books for children, the Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, in which the classical mythologies were retold, should also be mentioned in the list of Hawthorne's writings, as ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... mortal eyes. Christ rules direct and effectually, in his own power, through the Word and through the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers, maintaining them in the faith and in the knowledge of his Word, and protecting from the devil's wrath and subtlety; further, he rules through his angels, who guard his followers; again, he rules through his people themselves, who exercise authority one over another in loving service, each teaching, instructing, comforting and admonishing ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... hunting a red dear," I said with that playful subtlety which would make her take it as a personal compliment, though I was only thinking of that impostor, and longing to get at him, as ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the son had been long at his studies he learned that his father was dead. His nature was deeply affectionate, and the painful intelligence overwhelmed him for many days. At school he was not distinguished for brilliancy, but his tutors observed that he had solid parts, and much intellectual subtlety. He was not a great favourite among his class-mates generally, because his manners were shy and reserved, and he shrank from, rather than courted, the popularity and leadership which are the darling aims of so many lads in their school-days. Yet ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... dress ball, the brilliance of his eyes heightened by the powder, his hand on his sword-guard, at the age of ten, plump and spirited as one of Fragonard's Cupids." Here we have the younger of the Goncourts, delineated with all the subtlety of a delicate mannerism. Edmond was eighteen at the time. Scarcely free of the ferule of his pedagogues, he already looked at life with that air of keen astonishment which was never to leave him, and which was to kindle in his eye the sort of phosphorescent reflection that shone there to his last ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... receives all shocks, and within it their opposing elements neutralize one another. This is the function of the British Cabinet. It is perhaps the most curious formation in the political world of modern times, not for its dignity, but for its subtlety, its elasticity, and its many-sided diversity of power. It is the complement of the entire system; a system which appears to want nothing but a thorough loyalty in the persons composing its several parts, with a reasonable intelligence, to insure its bearing, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... forming a civil code, either consistent with common sense, or that has ever been practised in any country, namely, that of gradually building up the law in proportion as the facts arise which it is to regulate. We shall learn to appreciate the merit of vulgar objections against the subtlety and complexity of laws. We shall estimate the good sense and the gratitude of those who reproach lawyers for employing all the powers of their mind to discover subtle distinctions for the prevention of injustice;[29] ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... hypodermic, of extra large bore. Now you see the subtlety and ingenuity of the whole thing. If he had had a reasonable chance he would certainly ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... The word means "not-two-ness." Here we see a great subtlety of definition. It is not to be "one" with others that is urged, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... a public or to a people, and strives to lend this intimate conversation all the distinction and other qualities in keeping with such a mighty dialogue. During the preceding period things had been different with his art; then he had concerned himself, too, albeit with refinement and subtlety, with immediate effects: that artistic production was also meant as a question, and it ought to have called forth an immediate reply. And how often did Wagner not try to make his meaning clearer to those he questioned! In view of their ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... constitutional government, the least dangerous as well as the most efficacious method of meeting temporary and urgent necessities. It is better to suspend openly, and for a given time, a particular privilege, than to pervert, by encroachment and subtlety, the fixed laws, so as to adapt them to the emergency of the hour. The experience of history, in such cases, confirms the suggestions of reason. In countries where political liberty is finally established, as in England, it is precisely after it has obtained a signal triumph, ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... If he were so sensitive on the point of honour, he ought to have made a stand at the very beginning, and fought a battle in defence of Rome, not first to have retreated, giving out that he was acting with a subtlety worthy of Themistokles himself, and then to have regarded every day spent in Thessaly without fighting as a disgrace. The plain of Pharsalia was not specially appointed by heaven as the arena in which he was to contend ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... addresses himself to action. Hear then how Jiva, equipt with all his acts and overwhelmed with lust and wrath, enters the womb. The vital seed, mixed with blood, enters the womb of females and becomes the field (of Jiva), good or bad, born of (his) acts. In consequence of his subtlety and the condition of being unmanifest, Jiva does not become attached to anything even after attaining to a body. Therefore, he is called Eternal Brahman.[17] That (viz., Jiva or Brahman) is the seed of all creatures. It is in consequence of Him that living creatures live. That Jiva, entering ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and Julius Scaliger; and Fuchsius, in the proem of his book, says that my work Medicinae Contradictiones should be avoided like deadly poison. Julius Scaliger has been fully answered in the Apologia in the Books on Subtlety."[240] ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... I said, interested Bourgonef immensely. He seemed to enter completely into the minds of the sorrowing, pleading parents, and the sorrowing, denying lover. He appreciated and expounded their motives with a subtlety and delicacy of perception which surprised and delighted me. It showed the refinement of his moral nature. But, at the same time, it rendered his minor degree of interest in the other episodes of the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... for professional artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she frequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning his way to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness. On such occasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed in it. She had concluded that marriage was a greater folly, and men greater fools, than she had supposed; but ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... and though, for fear of making more mischief still, she never told her mother, yet there were times she shuddered at the bare sight of them, and blushed at their hypocritical regrets. Catherine, with a woman's vigilance, noticed this, and with a woman's subtlety said nothing, but quietly pondered it, and went on watching for more. The black sheep themselves, in their efforts to partake in the general gloom and sorrow, succeeded so far as to impose upon their father and Giles: but the demure satisfaction that ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... with her back half turned to her lord, the friend of Caesar, so that he could not see the design that sat behind the mask of her sharp indifference. She rested her chin upon her knees, and let the blankness of her beauty exclaim upon the subtlety of her replies, plainly measuring the power of her provocation against the impoverished quality that camp and grove, court and schools, might leave upon august Roman sensibilities. It was the old, old sophistication, so perfect in its concentration behind the kol-brushed eyes ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... encouraged religion, but not the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ—for he, Apleon was The Anti-Christ. It was he, with his emissaries, taught and guided by Satan, the Arch-enemy of God, and of His Christ, that had subtlety, secretly energized the world-religion, that followed the taking away of the church. That world-wide system had been an amalgamation of all the then existing false systems of religion. With the taking away ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... his first instrument of torture indicated subtlety. He bought from a Siwash Indian the most contemptible-looking cur ever beheld at the inlet, and he christened the unfortunate beast—Dennis. There was a resemblance between dog and man. Each, in the struggle for existence, had ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... all the subtlety of a true connoisseur, and in describing the sentiments aroused in her by some particular composition, or the entire work of a master, she ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... foregoing, I feel afraid of what I have said; it is dangerous seeking comfort where the Scriptures are silent; yet while we plead with God to be preserved from error, and try to be still before him, he will save us from the subtlety of the serpent, as well as from the rage of the lion. I ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... wish to take their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden..." 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. ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, so it be granted that all ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color, the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in a barely ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... of such powerful virtue that it ought to have reformed everybody in the neighborhood. Three ladies being in love with the three fast men, and resolved to win them back to regular hours and the paths of sobriety by every device of the female heart, dress themselves in men's clothes,—such is the subtlety of the female heart in the bosoms of modern young ladies of fashion,—and follow their lovers about from one haunt of dissipation to another and become themselves exemplarily vicious,—drunkards, gamblers, and the like. The first lady, who was ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... every statesman is so more or less; especially in the 16th century men preferred efficiency to principle. On the other hand, principles are valueless without law and order; and Burghley's craft and subtlety prepared a security in which principles might ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... reality of nature herself; but when I stood before the work of Apelles, the kind which the Greeks call "Monochromatic," verily, I almost worshipped, for the outlines of the figures were drawn with such subtlety of touch, and were so life-like in their precision, that you would have thought their very souls were depicted. Here, an eagle was soaring into the sky bearing the shepherd of Mount Ida to heaven; there, the comely Hylas was struggling to escape from the embrace of the lascivious ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... The subtlety of the Military mind beats and will beat me to the end. Yesterday we lived in a row of earthen dwellings in a depression in the ground, which anyone might be excused for referring to, if not as trenches, at least as dugouts. These alone of all the marvels of military engineering ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... I require subtlety in a woman, and so far as I could discover Le Mire knew not the meaning of the word. We had spent many hours during the trip across in pleasant companionship; she had done me the honor to tell me that she found my conversation amusing; and, after all, she was undeniably ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... an oriental subtlety; a man who believes in everything equally and generally may be said to believe in nothing. It is not a simple European view which makes honest Doubt worth a dozen of the Creeds. And it is in direct opposition ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... style, without subtlety or high imagination, the Song of Roland is yet not without grandeur; and its patriotic ardor gives it a place as the earliest of the truly national poems of ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... philosophers disputed upon the elements of the material creation; bringing to the discussion intellects of the same kind, though as far below them in degree as in the dignity of the subjects upon which their useless subtlety is expended. But it cannot be said of them, that they, when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... of rapid colour-change is seen in cuttlefishes, where it is often an expression of nervous excitement, though it sometimes helps to conceal. It occurs with much subtlety in the AEsop prawn, Hippolyte, which may be brown on a brown seaweed, green on sea-lettuce or sea-grass, red on red seaweed, and so on through ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... charming illustration of this. I used sometimes to get into trouble with American ladies, who "hoped I did not take Daisy Miller as a type of the average American girl," by assuring them that "I did not—that I thought her much too good for that." And in truth there seemed to me a lack of subtlety in the current appreciation of the charming young lady from Schenectady, who is much finer than many readers give her credit for. And on this point I think I may cite Mr. Henry James himself as a witness ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... in his great speech on Equal Rights in the First Session of the 39th Congress. Quoting from James Otis, he says: "No such phrase as virtual representation was known in law or constitution. It is altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. We must not be cheated by any such phantom or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... where the poor girl was closeted. She knew all about her dreadful night, for the two had met again, the evening before, after Catherine left her father. Mrs. Penniman was on the landing of the second floor when her niece came upstairs. It was not remarkable that a person of so much subtlety should have discovered that Catherine had been shut up with the Doctor. It was still less remarkable that she should have felt an extreme curiosity to learn the result of this interview, and that this sentiment, combined with her great amiability ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... that the charms of his wealth would be reflected on himself. Meanwhile, Ione was secretly somewhat uneasy at the gallantries which escaped from those lips, which, till lately, had seemed to disdain the common homage we pay to beauty; and with that delicate subtlety, which woman alone possesses, she sought to ward off shafts deliberately aimed, and to laugh or to talk away the meaning from his warming language. Nothing in the world is more pretty than that same species of defence; it is the charm of the African necromancer who professed with a ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... unique among tales intended for children, alike for pleasant instruction, quaintness of humor, gentle pathos, and the subtlety with which lessons moral and otherwise are conveyed to children, and perhaps to their seniors ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... experience and skill have been what they might, was ever opposed to Sir William Follett without feeling, as has been already intimated, the necessity of the greatest possible vigilance and research to encounter his boundless resources; his dangerous subtlety and acuteness in detecting flaws, and raising objections; his matchless art in concealing defects in his own case; and building up, with easy grace, a superstructure equally unsubstantial and imposing, and defeating all attempts to assail or overthrow it. Even very strong ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... sisters, conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... Informed from Home I shall never Ballance in Cases so Wickedly Contrived and contrary to the Conduct of plain Trading and Simple Honesty, But in Justice to my King and Country always Condemn, and if this Mackay was in Court, notwithstanding all his Subtlety and Double Dealing and his pretended Naturalization Certifyed from Teneriffe, as in the Case, I should order him in Custody till delivered up to the Government. Therefore on the whole I Adjudge and Condemn the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... and dexterity, the subtlety and tact required, interested him more in the commission than did the benevolence. He called, sent up his card, and composed his countenance for his part, like ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... for ages, until, in the schoolroom at concert time, at the first caress of the magical smell, those delicate and divine, those secret, submerged, and forgotten things arose, and with the undying poignancy and subtlety of odors they entered into him again. And besides these qualities which were indefinable, the smell was vividly symbolic. It was entwined with and it stood for his experience of art and ambition and the power to move men and women; for song and for the sensuous thrill and spiritual ecstasy ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... a mission to a distant court during the continuance of the martial games, was on his return presented by the king himself to the young warrior. It is said that both were so much moved by this meeting, that all present were mystified still more. The baron, with that deep subtlety for which he was remarkable, recovered himself the first, and accounted for his emotion to the satisfaction of his hearers, though not apparently to that of the stranger, who, though his cheek was blanched, still kept his bright searching eyes ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... you shall not do the same by those I have formed for your sister. I but too well understand the fascination you both labour under; since I had the same struggle with your father, to make him cast off the parent of this youth, who hid his evil propensities with the smoothness and subtlety of a viper. In those days how often did I hear of his attractions, his wide spread conquests, his wit, his refined manners. It is well when flies only are caught by such spiders' webs; but is it for the high-born and powerful ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... clung, with an inspired sagacity, to the reality of the Incarnation: and thus it has preserved to humanity a real Saviour and a real Exemplar. The subtle brains which during these centuries searched for one joint in the Catholic armour wherein to insert a deadly dart, were foiled by a subtlety as acute, and by deductions and definitions that were logical, rational, and necessary. If the Councils had not defined the faith which had been once for all delivered to the saints, it would have been dissolved little by little by sentimental ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... cunning what you please to prove, But my poor heart knows only how to love; And, finding this, you tyrannize the more: 'Tis plain, some other mistress you adore; And now, with studied tricks of subtlety, You come prepared to lay the fault on me. [Wringing her hands. But, oh, that I should love so ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... the schoolmen were often carried into distinctions bewildering from their subtlety. There were individuals who were more disposed to the inductive method of investigation, and who gave attention to natural as well as metaphysical science. Perhaps the most eminent of these is Roger Bacon. He was an Englishman, was born ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... I know the bondage which men endure, the realty and the delusion in what they think and feel; and the subtlety and strength of those evil forces which color his disposition and ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and clearness, and its essential characters shown. If it was an oak tree, the acorns were drawn; if a flint pebble, its veins were drawn; if an arm of the sea, its fish were drawn; if a group of figures, their faces and dresses were drawn—to the very last subtlety of expression and end of thread that could be got into the space, far off or near. But now our ingenuity is all "concerning smoke." Nothing is truly drawn but that; all else is vague, slight, imperfect; got with as little pains as possible. You examine your closest foreground, and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin |
