Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious. [ Hume ]

Why was the sight to such a tender ball as the eye confined, so obvious and so easy to be quenched, and not, as feeling, through all parts diffused, that she might look at will through every pore? [ Milton ]

People or Persons? The meaning of people is a body of persons regarded collectively, a nation; hence the obvious inaccuracy of the expression, Many people think so. Persons is preferable in any such sense. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view. [ Goldsmith ]

Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life, but no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

There is this difference between those two temporal blessings, health and money: Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied: and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all their money for heath. [ Colton ]

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take commonsense quantum sufficit (in sufficient quantity); add a little application to the rules and orders of the House of Commons, throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface. [ Chesterfield ]