Quotes about Subtlety

Never place your punch at the beginning of a column nor at the end. Sneak it in where it's least expected. Fill a whole column with drivel, just to get in that one important line.

In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weakness was humility. It's not! If I'm the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride.

Satan is an opportunist.

Do the truth quietly without display.

An uncommon prudence is habtual with the subtler depravity, for it has everything to hide.

We paint a slow picture. You can see the brushstrokes. We don't get to the point, and sometimes when we do, our readers don't notice, in fact. It's so couched in nuance, it can fly right over a person's head. 'What was that you said? I couldn't quite make it out.'

The devil is so subtle that he dominates man and persuades him at the same time that he is not being dominated.

I am convinced that fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant, unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing.

so much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.

Most people don't feel conscious hostility to God. The hostility is manifest more subtly with a quiet insubordination and indifference.

it was not a silence of resentment; it was the silence of an understanding too delicate to limit by words.

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.