Obscurity quotes:

Send

The mind's passion is all for singling out. Obscurity has another tale to tell. -- Adrienne Rich
Obscurity can be a fire of ambition in those who have stalwart souls -- Taylor Caldwell
Obscurity brings safety. -- Aesop
Obscurity often brings safety. -- Aesop
Obscurity is never a virtue. -- Roald Dahl
Obscurity is the realm of error. -- Luc de Clapiers
Obscurity is the kingdom of error. -- Luc de Clapiers
Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Obscurity is a bigger problem than money. -- Grant Cardone
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity. -- Joseph Addison
--
Fame is fickle, but Obscurity is usually faithful to the end. -- Mason Cooley
It is human nature to instinctively rebel at obscurity or ordinariness. -- Taylor Caldwell
Obscurity and competence - that is the life that is best worth living -- Mark Twain
Obscurity and a competence"?that is the life that is best worth living. -- Mark Twain
--
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery. -- Aldous Huxley
Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness. -- Socrates
Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world. -- Nicolas Chamfort
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language. -- Edward Gibbon
When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility. -- Gilbert K. Chesterton
If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. -- Emily Bronte
Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity. -- Jim Carrey
Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness. -- John Wilkins
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
Philosophical reflection could not leave the relation of mind and spirit in the obscurity which had satisfied the needs of the naive consciousness. -- Wilhelm Wundt
Obscurity makes success undefined because success is crowned by sharing what you have with people who need it; you can't share if you keep hiding! -- Israelmore Ayivor
Obscurity, indeed, is painful to the mind as well as to the eye; but to bring light from obscurity, by whatever labour, must needsbe delightful and rejoicing. -- David Hume
Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear. -- James Thurber
I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity. -- Tallulah Bankhead
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another. -- W. H. Auden
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. -- Thomas Merton
Well has he lived who has lived well in obscurity. -- Ovid
He who has lived obscurely and quietly has lived well. -- Ovid
The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small. -- Peabo Bryson
You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity. -- Elvis Costello
No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe. -- William Kingdon Clifford
Obscurantism is the academic theorist's revenge on society for having consigned him or her to relative obscurity - a way of proclaiming one's superiority in the face of one's diminished influence. -- David Lehman
Science fiction offers an intensely bracing angle of view for writers to adopt, especially in a time of constant innovation and crisis, and it is a scandal that in 1999 so many writers have written it and continue to write it in obscurity. -- John Clute
But it is true that sometimes an enveloping darkness aids one to clearer vision; as in a panorama building, for example, where the obscurity about the entrance prepares one better for the climax, and gives the scene depicted a more real and vivid appearance. -- Pierre Loti
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
The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds. -- George Allen, Sr.
I didn't want to be known. People say, 'I didn't want to toil in obscurity.' I like toiling in obscurity. -- Manoj Bhargava
I think it's important to have had at least a few years of obscurity, where people treat you like everybody else. -- Robert De Niro
I had a great time on News Radio, I got to make tons of money in relative obscurity and learn a lot about the TV biz and work on my standup act constantly. It was a dream gig. -- Joe Rogan
To morrow, I believe, is to be an eclipse of the sun, and I think it perfectly meet and proper that the sun in the heavens, and the glory of the Republic should both go into obscurity and darkness together. -- Benjamin F. Wade
--
Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people. -- Sonia Sotomayor
I only hope that one day, America will recognize what the rest of the world already has known, that our indigenous music - gospel, blues, jazz and R&B - is the heart and soul of all popular music; and that we cannot afford to let this legacy slip into obscurity, I'm telling you. -- Quincy Jones
David Lynch plucked me from obscurity. He cast me as the lead in 'Dune' and 'Blue Velvet,' and people have seen me as this boy-next-door-cooking-up-something-weird-in-the-basement ever since. I was 23 when I first met him, in his bungalow on the Universal lot, and could never have predicted we would have such an enduring relationship. -- Kyle MacLachlan
I guess I just always imagined that I was going to die, like, somehow on top. I was going to, like, go out in some sort of blaze of glory. I never thought about sort of fading into obscurity. And I've worked so hard at having a life, an identity, in obscurity and finding peace with that. -- Steve-O
Enjoy your obscurity while it lasts. -- Austin Kleon
Piracy is not the problem, obscurity is. -- Seth Godin
Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time. -- Carrie Fisher
How often the highest talent lurks in obscurity. -- Plautus
--
The big problem isnâ??t piracy, itâ??s obscurity. -- Cory Doctorow
The soul awakens in times obscurity by divine grace. -- Lailah Gifty Akita
How often we see the greatest genius buried in obscurity! -- Plautus
One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity. -- Samuel Johnson
The enemy of a writer is not controversy but obscurity. -- William P. Young
I seem to have emerged from the relative obscurity of TV. -- Peter Webber
People newly emerged from obscurity generally launch out into indiscriminate display. -- Jean Ingelow
Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity. -- Neil Gaiman
The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity. -- Quintilian
Nothing helps an artist's career more than a little death and obscurity. -- Dan Simmons
Maybe some people are better off in obscurity than trying to keep on expanding. -- Erika M. Anderson
A government official is a man who has risen from obscurity to something worse. -- Pat Robertson
It may be hard to monetize fame, but it is impossible to monetize obscurity. -- Cory Doctorow
I wanted to drag Shakespeare from obscurity. I've been a fan my whole life. -- Joss Whedon
Men seek fame and high places only to learn that they were happier in obscurity -- Vance Havner
I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity. -- Alexander the Great
One must choose between obscurity with efficiency, and fame with its inevitable collateral of bluff. -- William McFee
Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity. -- Oliver Cromwell
There is no defense against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness. -- Joseph Addison
The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor. -- Jean-Baptiste Say
Many things prevent knowledge, including the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life -- Protagoras
We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style. -- Tom Stoppard
The obscurity is more often in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject. -- Alexander Hamilton
Artists are the best theologians. They feel things that are true before theologians can jargonize them into obscurity. -- Tony Campolo
There's nothing more horrifying than the possibility or the idea that you will just fade away into obscurity. -- Marc Maron
Fame is a devil; obscurity is an Angel! Stay away from me, Devil; Come near to me, Angel! -- Mehmet Murat ildan
Untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity. -- John Locke
A man will work and slave in obscurity for ten years and then become famous in ten minutes. -- Robert Ripley
As the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. -- Alexis de Tocqueville
'The Green Turtle' wasn't all that popular. He lasted only five issues of Blazing Comics before disappearing into obscurity. -- Gene Luen Yang
Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity. -- Larry Wall
God's extraordinary work is most often done by ordinary people in the seeming obscurity of a home and family. -- Neal A. Maxwell
Dread not events unknown, and be not downhearted, for the fountain of the water of life is involved in obscurity. -- Bill Vaughan
Permit us to labor on in obscurity, and at the end of twenty years you may hear from us again. -- Adoniram Judson
Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office. -- Ambrose Bierce
There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition -- Blaise Pascal
If it took Labouchere three columns to prove that I was forgotten, then there is no difference between fame and obscurity. -- Oscar Wilde
If we were not in Vietnam, all that part of the world would be enjoying the obscurity it so richly deserves. -- John Kenneth Galbraith
One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. -- Albert Camus
This was a splendid life. Splendid in its obscurity and humility, splendid in its strength and charity, splendid in its achievements. -- Robert Mortimer
As the pearl ripens in the obscurity of its shell, so ripens in the tomb all the fame that is truly precious. -- Walter Savage Landor
The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry. -- Ernest Gellner
Some people find clarity threatening. They like muddle, confusion, obscurity. So when somebody does no more than speak clearly it sounds threatening. -- Richard Dawkins
Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
One of the things I've learned about being president is that we'll work on issues for long periods of time, sometimes in obscurity. -- Barack Obama
Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity. -- Anna Komnene
I have gone from local obscurity to national obscurity to international obscurity. Once I learn how to monetize obscurity, I will be rich. -- Ernie J Zelinski
When I wrote about the French Revolution, I didn't choose to write about aristocrats; I chose characters who began their lives in provincial obscurity. -- Hilary Mantel
Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting. -- Edmund Burke
Whatever happens to the art world, art will go on regardless. As for obscurity, it looms just over the horizon beckoning us all. Why worry. -- Michael Craig-Martin
As a student in Beijing in 1996, I sometimes marveled at the sheer obscurity of the movies that somehow made it onto pirated discs in China. -- Evan Osnos
I want to be famous so I can be humble about being famous. What good is my humility when I am stuck in this obscurity? -- David Budbill
Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? -- Henry David Thoreau
What is popular is not necessarily vulgar; and that which we try to rescue from fatal obscurity had in general much better remain where it is. -- William Hazlitt
John Major is what he is: a man from nowhere, going nowhere, heading for a well-merited obscurity as fast as his mediocre talents can carry him. -- Paul Johnson
It's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some private code... obscurity is usually the refuge of incompetence. -- Robert A. Heinlein
College wasn't like the real world. In the real world people dropped names based on their renown. In college, people dropped names based on their obscurity. -- Jeffrey Eugenides
It is my rather subversive opinion that a writer's feelings of anonymity-obscurity are the second most valuable property on loan to him during his working years. -- J. D. Salinger
If we were in the habit of reading poets their obscurity would not matter; and, once we are out of the habit, their clarity does not help. -- Randall Jarrell
The Lord chose Joseph Smith, called upon him at fourteen years of age, gave him vision, and led him along, guided and directed him in his obscurity. -- Brigham Young
Poverty might make you obscure, but if you continue churning out wisdom to solve more problems and challenges, you will neither remain poor nor die in obscurity. -- Archibald Marwizi
...ambition without pious restraint must end in failure, often involving in its ruin that beautiful reverence which solaces common men for the obscurity and poverty of their lot. -- Russell Kirk

Send