Way To Be Subtle Quotes & Sayings

Another way in which the negative anima in a man's personality can be revealed is in waspish, poisonous, effeminate remarks by which he devalues everything. Remarks of this sort always contain a cheap twisting of the truth and are in a subtle way destructive. There are legends throughout the world in which "a poison damsel" (as they call her in the Orient) appears. She is a beautiful creature who has weapons hidden in her body or a secret poison with which she kills her lovers during their first night together. In this guise the anima is as cold and reckless as certain uncanny aspects of nature itself, and in Europe is often expressed to this day by the belief in witches. — C. G. Jung

Here's an experiment: For one whole day think, speak, and act exactly as you would if you were absolutely convinced of the truth of the statements that God has all power and infinite intelligence, and that His nature is infinite goodness and love. To think in this manner all day will be the most difficult thing, because thought is so subtle. To speak in accordance with these truths will be easier, if you are vigilant. To act in accordance with them will be the easiest part, although it may require much in the way of moral courage. — Emmet Fox

Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up ... They become the whole ones, the well ones, the postponement of happiness, the ones who won't drink too much, give up, get divorced, become mentally ill. The part of oneself that's fighting against decay and depression is transferred to guarding them from decay and depression. In the meantime one decays and gets depressed. — Edward St. Aubyn

In short, Aristotle destroys the soul in order to give it immortality; the immortal soul is "pure thought," undefiled with reality, just as Aristotle's God is pure activity, undefiled with action. Let him who can, be comforted with this theology. One wonders sometimes whether this metaphysical eating of one's cake and keeping it is not Aristotle's subtle Way of saving himself from anti-Macedonian hemlock? — Will Durant

If you wish to become a divine immortal angel, then restore the angelic qualities of your being through virtue and service. This is the only way to gain the attention of the immortals ... These angelic teachers cannot be sought out; it is they who seek out the student. When you succeed in connecting your energy with the divine realm through high awareness and the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the transmission of the ultimate subtle truths will follow. — Laozi

I'm always looking for silhouettes that seem 'invisible' to the eye, as in that it's so well-tailored to your body that you won't even notice what you're wearing. It needs to be dramatic in a subtle way. — Lykke Li

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. — Carl Sagan

You can use reading as a food for the ego. It is very subtle. You can become knowledgeable; then it is dangerous and harmful. Then you are poisoning yourself, because knowledge is not knowing, knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom has nothing to do with knowledge. Wisdom can exist in total ignorance also. If you use reading just as a food for the mind, to increase your memory, then you are in a wrong direction. But reading can be used in a different way; then reading is as beautiful as anything else in life — Osho

No foreign architect of stature, such as I. M. Pei, resides in Japan. Foreign architects come to Japan on short-term contracts, erect a skyscraper or a museum, and then leave. But subtle and sophisticated approaches to services and design - the core elements of modern building technology - cannot be transmitted in this way. Japan is left with the empty shells of architectural ideas, the hardware without the software. — Alex Kerr

Having spent a long time in open spaces, whether sea or desert, it is a luxury to be able to take refuge in towns with narrow streets which provide a fragile fortress against the assaults of the infinite. There is such a sense of security against the boundless there, even if the murmur of the wave or the silence of the sands still pursue one through tortuous corridors. The winds, despite their subtle spirits, are themselves lost in the vestibules of this labyrinth and, unable to find a way through, whistle and turn in turbulence like demented dervishes. They will not break through the walls of this den in which life still pulsates in the shadows of humanity's black sun. — Georges Limbour

Putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that may not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, joining a table of people you don't know, telling a woman that you like her and want to date her. All of these things require you to stick your neck out on the line emotionally in some way. You're making yourself vulnerable when you do them.

In this way, vulnerability represents a form of power, a deep and subtle form of power. — Mark Manson

The difference between being subtle and abstract is the difference between knowing and saying it in a gentler way and not knowing and saying it in a way that will let you off the hook. To be abstract with the word is all right if you use it like paint and seek the pure word, but it is difficult, in the language, to have near purity without near meaning. — Charles Bukowski

But the real difficulties, the real arts of survival, seem to lie in more subtle realms. There, what's called for is a kind of resilience of the psyche, a readiness to deal with what comes next. These captives lay out in a stark and dramatic way what goes on in every life: the transitions whereby you cease to be who you were. — Rebecca Solnit

Try to write in a directly emotional way, instead of being too subtle or oblique. Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done. — Anne Lamott

As they walked, the subtle lamplight of a dirigible washed over them. Finley glanced up, watching the light grow closer, slowly descending from the sky in a whirl of propellers as the ship made its way into the London air dock just a few miles away. How amazing it must be to float so high, to travel so quickly.
Dandy followed her gaze, but they didn't stop walking. "I was up in one of them flyers once," he told her. "I climbed over the rail and hung on to one of the ropes. Freeing it was. I almost let go."
She whipped her head around to gape at him. "The fall would kill you."
He smiled ever so slightly. "Not afore I flew. Worse ways to go. — Kady Cross

Korean-American: Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? It's like being raised by monkeys - these retarded monkeys who can barely speak English and who are too evil to understand anything besides conformity and status. Most of us hate these monkeys from an early age and try to learn how to be human from school or television, but the result is always tainted by this subtle or not so subtle retardation. Asian people from Asia are even more brain-damaged, but in a different way, because they are the original monkey. — Jean Lee

An empathic way of being can be learned from empathic persons. Perhaps the most important statement of all is that the ability to be accurately empathic is something which can be developed by training. Therapists, parents and teachers can be helped to become empathic. This is especially likely to occur if their teachers and supervisors are themselves individuals of sensitive understanding. It is most encouraging to know that this subtle, elusive quality, of utmost importance in therapy, is not something one is "born with", but can be learned, and learned most rapidly in an empathic climate. — Carl Rogers

He stirred my soul in the most subtle way and the story between us wrote itself. — Nikki Rowe

The stories of tarot are the reason for its existence. With a deck of cards, we can tell the stories of where we come from, how it is that we are here, what awaits us, and what we will or might become. Tarot tells the story that we are made in a divine image, and that the world (at least the world as we experience it) is made in that same image, so that in some subtle way God, humanity, and the world are all the same shape and are made of the same things. if that is true, then to be a student of tarot is to be a student of everything. — Wald Amberstone

What I learned about them, I liked. But it also seemed that the liberal line was not entirely correct, for it was obvious that racial differences went far beyond skin color. It would be difficult to categorize all the distinctions I noticed. In fact, I made no effort to catalogue them at the time, but their differences ranged all the way from physical characteristics to more subtle differences such as extreme aversion for work in cold weather. On cold days, when I felt invigorated, my black co-workers seemed lethargic. — David Duke

My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship. — Emily Watson

We talked through the long hours of night. I spoke subtle circles around the way I felt, not wanting to be overbold. I thought she might be doing the same, but I could never be sure. It was like we were doing one of those elaborate Modegan court dances, where the partners stand scant inches apart, but - if they are skilled - never touch. Such was our conversation. But not only were we lacking touch to guide us, it was as if we were also strangely deaf. So we danced very carefully, unsure what music the other was listening to, unsure, perhaps, if the other was dancing at all. — Patrick Rothfuss

We defied fate, who stepped in long ago and did everything in her power to keep us apart. Like two comets headed for a collision, our trajectory could not be stopped. We kept finding a way back. Every choice, every kiss, every subtle nudge was destined for our inevitable impact. Fate thought she was pulling us apart, when all along, she was setting the path for spectacular crash. An eruption, a nova, a big bang, a constellation - That's what we are. We are the thing of beauty created from catastrophe. We are the light burning bright, forged from an impossible collection of coincidences. — Nina G. Jones

To be with another in this [empathic] way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish.
Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong - yet subtle and gentle - way of being. — Carl R. Rogers

I was trying to come round to the idea that there might be an invisible reality capable of interfering in our lives, but the only reason I did so was because of a love I didn't want to believe I felt but which was continuing to grow in a subtle, devastating way.
I was content in my universe and didn't want to change it at all, even though I was being propelled in that direction. — Paulo Coelho

A phenomenon that gave rise to my first critical insight into the subtle ruse of power: the prevailing law threatened one with trouble, all to keep one out of trouble. Hence, I concluded that trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it. — Judith Butler

On the other side of self-doubt comes a confidence from faith in the process. Even though our destination may be a long way off, each day we rise with a subtle smile as if we have already achieved it, because, when we are truly committed to a task, we already have. — Chris Matakas

When I was a little kid, no matter what my parents told me, I would always argue - even if I agreed with them. And I've always been a show-off. As I've gotten older, I've found ways to be more subtle about it, but that's the way I am. I suppose that has something to do with why I write and direct. — Tom Noonan

Children, you must understand, are monsters. They are ravenous, ravening, they lope over the countryside with slavering mouths, seeking love to devour. Even when they find it, even if they roll about in it and gorge themselves, still it will never be enough. Their hunger for it is greater than any heart to satisfy. You mustn't think poorly of them - we are all monsters that way, it is only that when we are grown, we learn more subtle ways to snatch it up, and secretly slurp our fingers clean in dark corners, relishing even the last dregs. All children know is a sort of clumsy pouncing after love. They often miss, but that is how they learn. — Catherynne M Valente

Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist. — Peter Block

There is another more subtle way in which the innocence of childhood is lost: when the child is infected with the desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of people who are striving might and main to become, not what Nature intended them to be- musicians, cooks, mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors- but "somebody": to become successful, famous, powerful; to become something that will bring not quiet and self-fulfillment, but self-glorification and self-expansion — Anthony De Mello

Often we are tempted to think that loving someone - a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even just a friend - means clinging to them, which is a subtle form of ownership. But love means embracing the poverty of not owning the other. So chastity might be able to teach the world about a free way to love and a loving way to be free. — James Martin

Subtle brain differences often cause people like me to respond differently - strangely even - to common life situations. Most of us have a hard time with social situations; some of us feel downright crippled. We get frustrated because we're so good at some things, while being completely inept at others. There's just no balance. It's a very difficult way to live, because our strengths seem to contrast so sharply with our weaknesses. "You read so well, and you're so smart! I can't believe you can't do what I told you. You must be faking!" I heard that a lot as a kid. — John Elder Robison

I know for myself my big, long friendships they don't have the same problems any more, but they also-when you get together you often times just have a drink and watch football together. You're not really talking about everything so much the same way. You just need to be around each other, and yet you can look at each other and so much is said just between those minutiae- it's totally subtle is really what it is. I felt like that, you know, a life that's been so totally dramatic then becomes beauty in the fact that it's just so small. — Josh Lucas

I should be campaigning for his release in print in a way that appeared crusading but actually wasn't quite effective enough to work. Like planting barely noticeable seeds of doubt into the prose. Subtle. I — Jon Ronson

If any theme runs through all my work, it is what Adrienne Rich once called "re-vision", i.e., the re-perceiving of experience, not because our experience is complex or subtle or hard to understand (though it is sometimes all three) but because so much of what's presented to us as "the real world" or "the way it is" is so obviously untrue that a great deal of social energy must be mobilized to hide that gross and ghastly fact. has a theatre critic (whose name I'm afraid I've forgotten) once put it," There's less there than meets the eye". Hence, my love for science fiction, which analyses reality by changing it. — Joanna Russ

Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test-tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind - its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful. Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about. — Rajneesh

Use all your suffering for meditation, and soon you will come to know that the suffering disappears because the energy starts moving inwards. It is not moving to the periphery, to the suffering, you are not feeding your suffering. It looks illogical, but this is the whole conclusion of all the mystics of the world: that you feed your suffering and you enjoy it in a subtle way, you don't want to be well - there must be some investment in it. — Rajneesh

The dying tapers off now and then, but the War is still killing lots and lots of people. Only right now it is killing them in more subtle ways. Often in ways that are too complicated, even for us, at this level, to trace. But the right people are dying, just as they do when armies fight. The ones who stand up, in Basic, in the middle of the machine-gun pattern. The ones who do not have faith in their Sergeants. The ones who slip and show a moment's weakness to the Enemy. These are the ones the War cannot use, and so they die. The right ones survive. The others, it's said, even know they have a short life expectancy. But they persist in acting the way that they do. Nobody knows why. Wouldn't it be nice if we could eliminate them completely? Then no one would have to be killed in the War. — Thomas Pynchon

And now, she felt the presence of Grandmother Deal, as always--that same unexplainable presence of the woman who had mothered them all, whose love for her children and her children's children was so deep that after all the years it still seemed a tangible thing, delicate and rare, like the faint subtle odor of a fine perfume.

Could such things be, she wondered vaguely...? Could the loved dead come back? At a time like this, was the memory of them so keen to one sensitive like herself, that they only seemed to return and mingle with those to whom they had been devoted? Or was there in some way unknown to humans, a definite magical blending of these imperishable spirits with the mortal spirits of those they had so deeply loved? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves. — Plato

Will power is nothing but another name of ego power. A man of wisdom has no will, just as he has no mind - because to will means to keep yourself separate from existence. It is a little subtle, but try to feel it. The moment you will it means you are always willing against things as they are. You want them to be some other way. — Rajneesh

As an actor, if you step to the side and you look at [Thornton's performance] technically, and you try to imagine doing what he was doing, most people would panic. Most people would be on the set, and they would be panicking, going, "I'm not doing anything!" All the ham instincts in you would be screaming, "You've got to indicate something here." And it's beautiful, in a way. And so I appreciate, even as an audience member, the courage that it takes to be ... frankly, to be subtle. — Edward Norton

He's often wished that he could capture the full essence of each woman's laugh on canvas, but he settles instead, on watching how, when a woman chuckles, her head moves slightly to the left or right so that the light grazes it at a new angle and creates a new pattern of highlight and shadow. It's this subtle shifting that he finds astounding - how everything and nothing can be written on a face through its lines, through the way skin around the eyes crinkle or how the shifting of a mouth belies joy or sarcasm or simple placation. He wonders what Vermeer might have said to that girl with the pearl earring, what words could have stirred in her that wanton expression, because even amateurs understand that faces allow an entry point and that negative space is the key to any good painting: what isn't included is sometimes more important than what is. — Adam Gallari

The subtle ruse of power: the prevailing law threatened one with trouble, even put one in trouble, all to keep one out of trouble. Hence, I concluded that trouble is inevitable and the task, how best to make it, what best way to be in it. As — Judith Butler

It could be that God has absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. — Annie Dillard

It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is owing to the tact & judgment of the writers who know when
& when only - the disused term can be introduced, when it is artistically agreeable or linguistically necessary; & of course then the obsolete word becomes obsolete only in name. It is recalled into existence by the natural requirements of a powerful or subtle style. It is not a corpse disinterred (as with less skillful writers) but a beautiful body awaked from a long & refreshing sleep. — Constantine P. Cavafy

Our sense of time passing can even depend on the way we feel about our physical well-being. The psychologist John Bargh gave people anagrams to solve, then noted the time it took them to walk to the lift to go home after the experiment. Half the people were given anagrams of everyday words, but half were given words that might be associated with older people, such as 'grey' and 'bingo'. When these people walked to the lift, these subtle hints about old age had primed them to such a degree that it changed their sense of timing and they walked more slowly. — Claudia Hammond

In life one rarely knows which remarks of the hundreds uttered in the course of a day will turn out to be auspicious. In fiction, foreshadowing is planted and flagged in some (hopefully or desperately) subtle way, drama demands it. — Delia Ephron