obscurity quotes

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world, it isthe charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justicetomycharacter.Whenmycountry takesher place among thenations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

- Robert Emmet
  Speech before being sentenced.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.

- Edward Gibbon
Memoirs of My Life (published1796), ch.8.

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

- Aldous Leonard Huxley
  Those Barren Leaves, pt.1, ch.1.

Concerning the gods I am not in a position to know either that they are or that they are not, or what theyare like in appearance; for there are many things that are preventing knowledge, the obscurity of the matter and the brevity of human life.

-Protagoras
Quoted in G B Kerferd The Sophistic Movement (1981), ch.13.

Wir tappen im Labyrinth unsers Lebenswandels und im Dunkel unserer Forschungen umher: helleAugenblicke erleuchten dabei wie Blitze unsernWeg. We grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning.

- Arthur Schopenhauer
  DieWelt alsWille undVorstellung (TheWorld asWill and Representation), vol.2, ch.15 (translated by E F J Payne).