Quotation Explorer - 'Obvious'

The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not "to have and to hold" but "to give and serve." There can be no other meaning.
That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along. - Madeleine L'Engle
It does not take sharp eyes to see the sun and the moon, nor does it take sharp ears to hear the thunderclap. Wisdom is not obvious. You must see the subtle and notice the hidden to be victorious.
It is obvious that 'obscenity' is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means 'anything that shocks the magistrate.' - Bertrand Russell
Sometimes it seems like "pain" is too obvious a place to turn for inspiration. Pain isn't always deep, anyway. Sometimes it's awful and that's it. Or boring. Surely other things can be as profound as pain. - Ellen Forney
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. - John Keats
I have become very aware how under-represented are the stories of the underprivileged and undervalued. Our records are, in general, very male and if not always the material of the rich, certainly (for obvious reasons) the material of the literate. - Sara Sheridan
I've been writing poems since I was sixteen. Back then, poems were an obvious release for all the frustrations and anxieties associated with adolescence. Mostly, they were a way for me to impress girls, even though I never remember any girls being impressed. - Tony Magistrale
What would Jesus do? One thins is obvious, if there is one thing Jesus would NOT do - is to behave like his followers. - Christina Engela
Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. - William James
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. - Arthur Koestler
They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Listening; our propensity to complicate this effortless act is only matched by our ability to relentlessly obscure the obvious. - Glenn A. Maltais
Tyrants are obvious, and easy to identify. It is the well entrenched and corrupt establishment that is truly insidious. - A.E. Samaan
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. - George Orwell
There's more than one way to be a person. Actually, there are more than two or three ways. You'd think that was obvious, but I find that often it is not. The world is essentially a collection of teams. Life is a process of deciding which ones we're going to join. - Meghan Daum
The idea that other perspectives exist may not be obvious to those who are in an emotional state of mind. - Nabil N. Jamal
It is obvious that the prevalent Christian world-view is not a Kingdom world-view - Sunday Adelaja
Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely. - Hesketh Pearson
I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space. - Alan Shepard
...And so we go and I meet his parents. And it's a very strange thing meeting your girlfriend's boyfriend's parents for the first time. Part of you is angry for obvious reasons and part of you still wants to make a good impression. On a side note, they seemed in perfect health. - Mike Birbiglia
Dalí painted melting clocks. I suppose if he'd asked around first, quizzed people if they wanted to see a picture of a melting clock, the answer might have been something obvious, like 'Clocks don't melt!' But, lucky for us, Salvador didn't care what anyone else thought. You use what moves you. - Laura Ruby
I hope someday she meets just the right man and has babies - a whole passel of babies, more than I could have - so she understands how it kills me now that she won't let me hug her when she's in obvious distress. (The Life You've Imagined) - Kristina Riggle
It is obvious that most people are not living the life they want to live! The easiest solution for this problem is to give up the life you want to live. And the hardest solution is this: Give up everything which prevents you to live the life you want to live! - Mehmet Murat ildan
Often subtle clues are not obvious enough for the stubborn or stupid. This is when God stops throwing crumbs and starts throwing the whole piece of bread. If you step on moldy bread then you know you have waited too long. - Shannon L. Alder
Things always become obvious after the fact - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Evil is obvious only in retrospect. - Gloria Steinem
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. - R. Buckminster Fuller
He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities. - Robertson Davies
When you're a teenager and you're in love, it's obvious to everyone but you and the person you're in love with. - John Scalzi
Logan stopped and gazed skyward as the kite began to soar above them, and when he clapped his hands at Ben's obvious joy, she was strucked by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people. - Nicholas Sparks
Proving the obvious has never been easy. - Marty Rubin
[Tolstoy] does not necessarily get rid of [his angry] temperament by undergoing religious conversion, and indeed it is obvious that the illusion of having been reborn may allow one's native vices to flourish more freely than ever, though perhaps in subtler forms. - George Orwell
Never assume the obvious is true. - William Safire
Men of science offer us health, an obvious benefit; it is only afterwards that we discover that by health, they mean bodily slavery and spiritual tedium. - G.K. Chesterton
The great discoveries are usually obvious.
If a person wants to be a part of your life,they will make an obvious effort to do so.Think twice before reserving a space in your heartfor people who do not make an effort to stay. - Sham Hinduja
It is better to believe an obvious lie, than to swallow a deceitful truth. - Dennis E. Adonis
The whole purpose of propaganda is to make the obvious seem obscure, or offensive - Stefan Molyneux
Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. - Alain de Botton
There are two ways of constructing a piece of software: One is to make it so simple that there are obviously no errors, and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious errors. - Tony Hoare
The solution is so obvious, but for so many of us we would travel a hundred miles out of the way to avoid it, gather a thousand opinions on the way and take a pit stop in fear to check our map before we proceed through hell. Heaven was always a direct flight with no layovers. - Shannon L. Alder
It wasn’t closure, really. But I’d said the right things. I’d hit on some truths. Maybe some things didn’t get closure. Maybe some things weren’t really worth it, or didn’t really need it, and after a while the unimportance would become obvious. - Vee Hoffman
Well, here we are."Sometimes a statement of the bloody obvious was the only appropriate way forward. As if to give life ceremonious permission to proceed. - Michel Faber
An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible. - Alfred A. Knopf
So, this doesn't mean anything, but at least it's not obvious nonsense.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality. - Alan W. Watts
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic. - Oscar Wilde
It is so easy to forget the importance of emotional self-care. Especially when we have obvious symptoms of mental and physical illness. Emotions seem irrelevant, unrelated, invisible. But when we look at a giant oak tree, the seed that bore it is invisible too. - Vironika Tugaleva
Bias rules our minds and causes us to overlook the obvious. From 'Fillossofee: Messages From a Grandfather', by - Robert Gately
Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one's arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page. - Hyman G. Rickover
Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. - Sam Harris
but it seems that the most beautiful women always go for the most horrible shits, the most obvious fakes. - Charles Bukowski
One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. - Randall Jarrell
TYPE, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary. - Ambrose Bierce
It takes a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. - Alfred North Whitehead
A smile is merely a symptom of the human condition called happiness. Animals are affected by that condition more often though the symptoms are not so obvious. - R.N. Prasher
Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead. - James Joyce
I've discovered that life doesn't always turn on the obvious things - people dying, marriages, all the stuff that gets carved on the tombstones - but little unrecorded things too. - Eve Chase
So what if you're plain? Anyone can like a beautiful woman or a handsome man. That's easy. But power is the ability to inspire attraction without the obvious. - Donna Lynn Hope
Understand clearly that when a great need appears a great use appears also; when there is a small need there is small use; it is obvious, then, that full use is made of all things at all times according to the necessity thereof.
Isn't it obvious in in today's world from people's preoccupation with self-medication, drug and alcohol use, rationalization and avoidance distraction that the truth doesn't just hurt, it's extremely painful. - James Turner
She was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. - Henry James
We live in a highly complex, technological world and it's not entirely obvious what's right and what's wrong in any given situation, unless you can parse the situation, deconstruct it. People just don't have the insight to be able to do that very effectively. - Christopher Langan
As good surgical doctor works on a patient in the theater with varied kinds of surgical instruments, so a true leader also needs a clean bag of leadership characters that vary from task to task. One-way leaders are obvious failures! - Israelmore Ayivor
The choice is very obvious if you have to choose between the devil and the angel! If the choice is not obvious in your mind, then you have some badnesses inside you! - Mehmet Murat ildan
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. - Isaac Asimov
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. - Alfred North Whitehead
Solutions to mankind’s problems are easy and obvious. They remain unsolved because those who could solve them don’t want to. - Francis Mont
God’s various blessings are not always obvious. - Jim George
Life's been one tough little shit, but there's a very obvious reason why she hasn't let me get too comfy, settle too long or sink too deep. She knows she has to kick me in the ass sometimes to get me moving on my journey. - Jennifer DeLucy
They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves. - Calvin Coolidge
Why do we keep focusing on the minutiae, not the possible significant large events, in spite of the obvious evidence of their huge influence? - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Don't be too obvious about it. - Auliq Ice
The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. - Arthur Conan Doyle
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