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Let these profound and wise obscure quotes, sayings, and phrases make your life worthwhile and not fall into the fallacy of abyss prophecy.
Obscurity is part and parcel of one’s life journey. There will always be certain things in life and love that will be uncertain, unclear, and unknowable.
But obscurity should not become a thing of fear or intimidation when it comes to obvious things. As Helen Keller inspiringly quotes, ‘ nothing in life is to feared but to be understood.’
Know the difference, understand what can be known, have mastery over that, and leave the unknowable to its state.
Reason with life as much in one’s ability and capacity and leave the rest to God. That’s an amazing way of living a free life.
Best Obscure Quotes and Sayings
Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.
– Robert A. Heinlein
Maybe some people are better off in obscurity than trying to keep on expanding.
– Erika M. Anderson
Never be so brief as to become obscure.
– Hosea Ballou
Obscurity is never a virtue.
– Roald Dahl
One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.
– Samuel Johnson
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
– Thomas Moore
God and other artists are always a little obscure.
– Oscar Wilde
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
– Edward R. Murrow
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.
– Emily Bronte
Notoriety wasn’t as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.
– Neil Gaiman
One of the worse states to be in, is to be ignored. Obscurity like insecurity, kills!
– Bernard Kelvin Clive
Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Well has he lived who has lived well in obscurity.
– Ovid
Obscurity and competence—that is the life that is best worth living.
– Mark Twain
Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.
– Nicolas Chamfort
The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.
– Quintilian
I never knew how good it is to be unknown until now. The last time I was unknown I was too busy trying to become known to realize the advantages of obscurity.
– Alec Guinness
We inhabit an obscure planet, in an obscure galaxy, around an obscure sun, but on the other hand, modern human society represents one of the most complex things we know.
– David Christian
Be obscure clearly.
– E.B. White
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
– Edgar Allan Poe
In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.
– Horace
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
– Henry Miller
The first step to wisdom is to avoid the common fallacy which considers everything profound that is obscure.
– Gregory Nunn
I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.
– Dorothy Parker
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
– Samuel Johnson
I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
– Aldous Huxley
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air.
– Jane Austen
If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.
– Charles Kingsley
One must choose between obscurity with efficiency, and fame with its inevitable collateral of bluff.
– William McFee
Obscurity can be a fire of ambition in those who have stalwart souls.
– Taylor Caldwell
I give the fight up: let there be an end, a privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.
– Robert Browning
It is human nature to instinctively rebel at obscurity or ordinariness.
– Taylor Caldwell
Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
– Thomas Hardy
The mind’s passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell.
– Adrienne Rich
How often the highest talent lurks in obscurity.
– Plautus
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.
– Alexander Pope
There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
– Joseph Addison
There is value in long years of obscurity, if one doesn’t go insane or suicidal, in that, simply because nobody is looking, the habit of fooling around and trying things out gets ingrained.
– Jules Olitski
If you desire to know or learn anything to your advantage, then take delight in being unknown and unregarded. A true understanding and humble estimate of oneself is the highest and most valuable of all lessons.
– Thomas a Kempis
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails and impious men bear away, the post of honor is a private station.
– Joseph Addison
Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must be delightful and rejoicing.
– David Hume
Fame is fickle, but Obscurity is usually faithful to the end.
– Mason Cooley
Let there be no inscription upon my tomb. Let no man write my epitaph. No man can write my epitaph. I am here ready to die. I am not allowed to vindicate my character; and when I am prevented from vindicating myself, let no man dare calumniate me. Let my character and motives repose in obscurity and peace, till other times and other men can do them justice.
– Robert Emmet
The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds.
– George Allen
Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness.
– Socrates
If you find something obscure fascinating, learn as much about it as you can, because there’s a good chance it won’t be obscure for long.
– Hilary Mason
I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity.
– Alexander The Great
Even the most obscure hermit in the forest was not utterly alone; he too was enfolded in belonging.
– Herman Hesse
Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.
– Victor Hugo
When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren’t grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
– Cynthia Ozick
Truth like the sun, submits to be obscured; but like the sun, only for a time.
– Christian Nestell Bovee
Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!
– Charlotte Bronte
O how many noble deeds of women are lost in obscurity!
– Seneca
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
– Mae West
Obscurity is the realm of error.
– Luc De Clapiers
Obscurity brings safety.
– Aesop
Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficulty: elephants and poodles find many things obscure.
– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
He shone with the greater splendor, because he was not seen.
– Tacitus
The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten but that we are all doomed to being forgotten; that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed.
– Susan Orlean
While fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded. Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful, he alone is at peace.
– Virginia Woolf
The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance — that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph.
– Henri Frederic Amiel
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Do you believe in the concept of the unknowable?
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