Obscurity

“ Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a world regard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pride themselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity and ignorance! ”

“ The dissembler of a secret wishes for obscurity and silence: he wants to have the eyes of men turned away from him and their curiosity unroused. Whatever he says or does is to divest the idea of there being anything particularly interesting about him. But he who simulates—call him pretender, impostor, or quack—is nothing, if not taken notice of. The public gaze is his sunshine: obscurity gives him a deadly chill. ”

“ The third cause of obscurity, inability to express the thought which one has, is at once the most common, and the most inexcusable. Here we are dealing with a tangible thing, to a great extent a matter of rule, and, at most, largely a question of study. ”

“ The impenetrable obscurity which surrounds them allows them neither the contemplation of what is grandest in man’s outward aspect, nor even the admiration of those qualities which they themselves would hold most dear. ”

“ Whoever will take pains to study with attention the works devoted to the exposition of that ancient system, must be struck with the impenetrable obscurity in which it is enveloped. You turn over page after page, and the more you read the more you become confused. ”

“ It is true, this manifestation forms so tragic a vision, that if we had only to behold it as a spectacle, we might well desire that the misty obscurity should descend on it again, to shroud it from sight; while we should be left to indulge and elate our imaginations by dwelling on the pomps and splendors of the terrestrial scene,—the mighty empires, the heroes, the victories, the triumphs; the refinements and enjoyments of the most highly cultivated of the race ”

“ Clearness, obscurity.—There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. ”

“ In every page our taste and reason are wounded by the choice of gigantic and obsolete words, a stiff and intricate phraseology, the discord of images, the childish play of false or unseasonable ornament, and the painful attempt to elevate themselves, to astonish the reader, and to involve a trivial meaning in the smoke of obscurity and exaggeration. ”

“ For we do not endeavour to assume or acquire any majestic state for these our discoveries, by the triumphs of confutation, the citing of antiquity, the usurpation of authority, or even the veil of obscurity, which would easily suggest themselves to one endeavouring to throw light upon his own name, rather than the minds of others. ”

“ This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. ”

“ Such persons, therefore, find every where a due sense of their claims already established, except among those who are ignorant of the world by virtue of their own obscurity; "Not to know them, argues one's self unknown." ”

“ There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition." ”

“ It is not from the knowledge of the past that the first impressions of things derive their gloss and splendour, but from our ignorance of the future, which fills the void to come with the warmth of our desires, with our gayest hopes, and brightest fancies. It is the obscurity spread before it that colours the prospect of life with hope, as it is the cloud which reflects the rainbow. ”

“ For I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of crime, but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of infamy, and sometimes seem to myself to have shown, if indeed it required showing, that between the famous and the infamous there is but one step, if as much as one. ”

“ Objects seen through obscurity, imperfectly discerned, allow to the fancy but too free a scope; the mind grows debilitated, by brooding over its apprehensions; and those apprehensions, whether real or imaginary, are carried with accumulated pain to the heart. ”

“ The tide of seeming knowledge, which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the sudden meteors of intelligence, which for awhile appear to shoot their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way. ”

“ I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.” ”

“ Whatever thought they touch they clarify, and it is not true that they do not themselves originate and think creatively. It is only that to people who think muddily obscurity seems profound and simplicity superficial. ”

“ Besides the peculiar sense explained in the comment, the words have still a more general meaning, and caution us against going on, when our ideas begin to grow obscure, as we are then most apt to do, though that obscurity be an admonition that we should leave off, for it arises, either from our small acquaintance with the subject, or the incomprehensibility of its nature, in which circumstances a genius will always write as badly as a dunce. ”

“ It is rescue work, this snatching of vanishing phases of turbulence, disguised in fair words, out of the native obscurity into a light where the struggling forms may be seen, seized upon, endowed with the only possible form of permanence in this world of relative values—the permanence of memory. ”

“ Thus much however will be allowed, that general criticisms concerning obscurity, considered as a distinct thing from confusion and perplexity of thought, as in some cases there may be ground for them, so, in others, they may be nothing more at the bottom than complaints, that everything is not to be understood with the same ease that some things are. ”

“ But yet the effects of this animate matter prove that there is such a matter; onely, as I said before, this self-moving matter causing a self-division as well as a general action, is the cause of a self-obscurity, which obscurity causes doubts, disputes, and inconstancies in humane opinions, although not so much obscurity, as to make all Creatures blind-fold, for surely there is no Creature but perceives more or less. ”

“ For untruth being unacceptable to the mind of man, there is no other defence left for absurdity but obscurity. ”

“ For so great is the obscurity and variety of human affairs that nothing can be clearly known, as it is truly said by our academics, the least insolent of all the philosophers; ”

“ Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment. ”

“ This is what I see and what troubles me. I look on all sides, and see nothing but obscurity, nature offers me nothing but matter for doubt and disquiet. ”

“ There is an obscurity which hangs over the beginnings of all history—a kind of impalpable fog—which the writer can hardly avoid transferring from the first openings of his subject to the first pages of his book. ”

“ If all difficulties and obscurities are not completely removed, many misconceptions and apparent objections are dissipated, while the obscurity which finally remains is shown to be a necessary accompaniment of the dim light, by which the human mind, in its present condition, perceives these remote objects of eternity ”

“ as the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity. ”

“ And these extremes then are confused, or are conjoined, by sheer obscurity or else by blind mental oscillation. If explanation reduces facts to be adjectives of something which they do not qualify at all, the whole connection seems irrational, and the process robs us of the facts. But if the primary essence after all is qualified, then its character is transformed. ”

“ The suppression and obscurity arrays a simple truth in a veil of something like guilt, that is altogether meretricious, as opposed to the matronly majesty of our Scripture, for instance; and the conceptions as they recede from distinctness of idea approximate to the nature of feeling, and gain thereby a closer and more immediate affinity with the appetites. ”

“ Those who have overcome this initial difficulty, and have learned to avoid a jumble of misrelated thoughts and sentences, may nevertheless sin by falling into obscurity, which, indeed, is sometimes a wilful error and arises from a desire to cover poverty of thought by a semblance of profundity. ”

“ There is not once but always a “sustained level of clear thought and fine feeling.” There is obscurity at times, but 12it is usually the obscurity of profundity, and intelligent study generally reveals a meaning that is worth the effort. ”

“ Their thinkability will indeed be a mystery, but of the kind that it is a duty to make clear, because synonymous with obscurity or mental confusion. What has so far been demonstrated has been their unthinkability in the traditional form. ”

“ Bishop Warburton observes, that the obscurity in these lines arises from the double sense of the word dispose; when it relates to the stars, it signifies influence; when it relates to astrologers, it signifies deceive. ”

“ The chief obstacle, therefore, to our improvement in the moral or metaphysical sciences is the obscurity of the ideas, and ambiguity of the terms. ”

“ It gives one 364a strange sense of insecurity, of being in the dark. But I still believe that, if one went on thinking long enough and hard enough, one might somehow come through, get out on the other side of the obscurity. ”

“ Poor people! the sterility of their imagination is a eulogy on their credulity! I own that, if I had felt the want of persuading my readers I had penetrated into the walled city, I should have adopted a completely different course. My experience of things human taught me, a very long time ago, that the Unknown usually conceals a deception, and I should simply have expressed my surprise at having seen nothing surprising! ”

“ I saw it vividly, as though in our progress through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery. ”

“ Where is the vista out of this minute copy of ugly truth? To what land will the lofty and melancholy imagination betake itself? The land of dreams, strange dreams swarming with deep thoughts, sad contemplation of human destiny, a vague notion of the great enigma, groping reflection, which in the dimness of the rough woodcuts, amidst obscure emblems and fantastic figures, tries to seize upon truth and justice. ”

“ We see, as knowledge dawns upon it, truth and error strangely commingled; here, a bright spot illuminated by truth-and there, one darkened and distorted by error; and the state of such a soul may be compared to a landscape at early dawn, where the sun is seen superbly gilding some objects, and causing others to send forth their lengthened, distorted, and sometimes hideous shadows. ”

“ Surely, that is mystery enough. You may say, if you like, that this feeling of mystery is because of our ignorance; nevertheless, it is there."
"Yes," she replied. "But the trouble is that, in so far as we have discovered mysteries, they turn out to be of the most prosy and commonplace nature. Things that were once unknown, and appealed to the world as romantic, now that they are known are just as prosy and uninteresting as the commonplace. Directly a thing is known it becomes humdrum. I went to a lecture one night given by a scientist—an astronomer, in fact. ”

“ And deeper than all these lies the sense of a mystery half revealed, of a hidden wisdom and glory, of a transfiguring vision in which common things lose their solid importance and become a thin veil behind which the ultimate truth of the world is dimly seen. ”

“ Whatever lay beyond the scope of their analysis and defied their laws, they disliked and dreaded. The outlying regions of mystery which hem life in on every side, are inaccessible to the intellect and irreducible in terms of its laws, were strangely repellent to them, and from such shadowy vistas they resolutely turned their eyes and fastened them on the solid ground at their feet. ”

“ Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent. ”

“ On account of the obscurities and half-lights of our intellect, we perceive but dimly, and often fail to discern the true from the false. The illumination of the white light of Truth is needed to flood the dark recesses of the mind. ”

“ The confusion in the barbaric mind between the objective and the subjective, and between the name [Pg 169] and the person or thing, which has been illustrated in the foregoing pages, will enable us to see more clearly how the like confusion must enter into the interpretation of such occult and compound phenomena as dreams, and all their kind.
They supply the conditions for exciting and sustaining that feeling of mystery which attends man’s endeavour to get at the meaning of his surroundings. ”