What subtle hole is this? [ William Shakespeare ]
Deep subtle wits,
In truth, are master spirits in the world. [ Joanna Baillie ]
There are glances that have more wit than the most subtle speech.
We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described. [ Thoreau ]
The most subtle flattery that a woman can receive is by actions, not by words. [ Mme. Necker ]
Miss not the occasion; by the forelock take that subtle power, the never-halting time. [ Wordsworth ]
Nothing is more easy than to deceive one's self, as our affections are subtle persuaders. [ Demosthenes ]
The subtle sauce of malice is often indulged in by maidens of uncertain age, over their tea. [ Rivarol ]
Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in pouring out of one language into another, it will evaporate. [ Denham ]
The mingled incentives which lead to action are often too subtle and lie too deep for us to analyze. [ Lavater ]
There are peculiar ways in men, which discover what they are, through the most subtle feints and closest disguises. [ La Bruyere ]
Our love is inwrought in our enthusiasm, as electricity is inwrought in the air, exalting its power by a subtle presence. [ George Eliot ]
A double task to paint the finest features of the mind, and to most subtle and mysterious things give color, strength, and motion. [ Akenside ]
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; morals, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. [ Bacon ]
Charity balls are a curse. The name is a subtle argument in favor of their existence, but if ever anything belied its name, it is a charity ball. [ Geo. F. Hall ]
The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature. [ Coleridge ]
Sincerity is an openness of heart; it is found in a very few people, and that which we see. commonly is not it, but a subtle dissimulation, to gain the confidence of others. [ Rochefoucauld ]
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. [ Lord Bacon ]
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. [ Thoreau ]
He that abuses his own profession will not patiently bear with any one else who does so. And this is one of our most subtle operations of self-love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case. [ Colton ]