88 Indirect Quotes
Following is our list of indirect quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about direct and indirect.
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Famous Indirect Quotes
Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague. — Vincent Van Gogh
Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart. — Umberto Eco
Type well used is invisible as type, just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the transmission of words, ideas. — Beatrice Warde
It is often my nature to be abstract, hidden in plain sight, or nowhere at all. — Gerard Way
Hidden from the eyes, out from the heart. — Polish Proverbs
A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one. — Heraclitus
A woman is more influenced by what she divines than by what she is told. — Ninon De L'Enclos
There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven. — G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. — Jane Austen
We are like a judge confronted by a defendant who declines to answer, and we must determine the truth from the circumstantial evidence. — Alfred Wegener
A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations. — Russell Page
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. — Edward Bernays
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. — Alexander Pope
The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. — Benjamin Disraeli
It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done. — Virginia Woolf
Short Indirect Quotes
- Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting. — Emmet Fox
- The first law of computer science: Every problem is solved by yet another indirection. — Bjarne Stroustrup
- Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments. — William Shenstone
- there is a law of retribution in all things, direct or indirect, visible or invisible. — Miles Franklin
- Big business always serve - directly or indirectly - the masses. — Ludwig von Mises
- Self-interest, be it enlightened, works indirectly for the public good. — William H. Prescott
- The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation. — B. H. Liddell Hart
- I do get my pizzas paid for by Linux indirectly. — Linus Torvalds
- All problems in Computer Science can be solved by another level of indirection. — Butler Lampson
- Your strength is soft, indirect, delicate, tender, womanly. But it is strength just the same. — Anais Nin
Love Indirect Quotes
Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace. — Thomas Aquinas
Good poetry does undoubtedly tend to form the soul and character; it tends to beget a love of beauty and of truth in alliance together, it suggests, however indirectly, high and noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotion so helpful in making principles operative. — Matthew Arnold
...there is no such thing as finding true happiness by searching for it directly. It must come, if it come at all, indirectly, or by the service, the love, and the happiness we give to others. — Ralph Waldo Trine
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection must rest on circumstantial evidence. — George Santayana
Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others. — William Gilmore Simms
God loves every one of us but cannot directly benefit us; he can benefit us only indirectly through each other. For this reason he inspires us with his love — Emanuel Swedenborg
Would it not be well this Christmas to give first to the Lord, directly through obedience, sacrifice, and love, and then to give to him indirectly through gifts to friends and those in need as well as to our own? Should we do this, perhaps many of us would discover a new Christmas joy. — John Andreas Widtsoe
I think, don't you, that a girl with any delicacy of feeling couldn't bring herself to marry a man indirectly responsible for her father's death. No matter how much she was in love with him. — Wallace Stegner
Direct And Indirect Quotes
Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you -- either by direct taxes, or by the cruelly indirect tax of inflation. — John Wayne
All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us. — Immanuel Kant
This year I hope to introduce legislation that would require Power Administrations to list direct and indirect costs associated with ESA compliance as a line item on customer's power bills. — Cathy McMorris Rodgers
The only attitude (the only politics--judicial, medical, pedagogical and so forth) I would absolutely condemn is one which, directly or indirectly, cuts off the possibility of an essentially interminable questioning, that is, an effective and thus transforming questioning. — Jacques Derrida
The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric. — Louis Pasteur
In a community all acts of individuals and of organizations are directly or indirectly interconnected and interdependent — Chester Barnard
I don't find any direct statements in life. My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness come to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection. I don't think poetry arranged in neat patterns would reflect that situation. My poetry is disjunct, but then so is life. — John Ashbery
A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances. — James Allen
Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women. — Adrienne Rich
Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Make the fault easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest. — Dale Carnegie
People Writing About Indirect
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Vincent Van Gogh |
410 | 6735 |
 Umberto Eco |
279 | 1572 |
 Gerard Way |
240 | 4576 |
 Polish Proverbs |
73 | 1 |
 Heraclitus |
222 | 2366 |
 Ninon De L'Enclos |
56 | 360 |
More Indirect Quotes
Human rights are universal and indivisible. Human freedom is also indivisible: if it is denied to anyone in the world, it is therefore denied, indirectly, to all people. This is why we cannot remain silent in the face of evil or violence; silence merely encourages them. — Vaclav Havel
The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous. — Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
The picture is the imitation and converted reality of the goods, in short, an indirect substitute for reality. — Herbert Bayer
Still more confounding to the regime, rural conflict was turning out to be not class based but mostly generational and gender based; the regime indirectly admitted as much by complaining that what it called the middle and even poor peasants were “under the sway” of the kulaks. — Stephen Kotkin
It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent. — Ferdinand De Saussure
Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. — Nikola Tesla
We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavoring to meet it halfway, we easily become indirect and apathetic. — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The best messages in any given negotiation are really implied indirectly, come to the other person based on thinking that you're getting them to do - getting them to get some really solid thought behind their answers. And so a great thing to send someone in an email is, 'Have you given up on this project?' — Chris Voss
Boys frustrate me. I hate all their indirect messages, I hate game playing. Do you like me or don't you? Just tell me so I can get over you. — Kirsten Dunst
It has yet to be shown by direct biochemical methods, as opposed to the indirect genetic evidence mentioned earlier, that the code is indeed a triplet code. — Francis Crick
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every statistic you come across, everything you read in a textbook, everything you learn from parents or teachers, everything you see or read in the news or on social media, every tenet of conventional wisdom – it’s all indirect knowledge. That’s why perhaps the most important skill of a skilled thinker is knowing when to trust. — Tim Urban
My knowledge of myself is direct, synthetic, from within outwards; my knowledge of other persons is indirect, analytical, from outside inwards. My knowledge of myself starts at the core; that of others at the crust. — Salvador de Madariaga
An oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society because under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information. — Albert Einstein
In my mind of course natural disaster like tsunami, and these things, also I think indirectly may relate to human behavior. But then major sort of problems actually they're due to a lack of moral principle. — Dalai Lama
The division between the useful arts and the fine arts must not be understood in too absolute a manner. In the humblest work of the craftsmen, if art is there, there is a concern for beauty, through a kind of indirect repercussion that the requirements of the creativity of the spirit exercise upon the production of an object to serve human needs. — Jacques Maritain
There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton manufactures were created by the help of protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire was enforced by the state. — Karl Polanyi
Poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult...The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into its meaning. — T. S. Eliot
In contrast we let go of existence, meaning, and the sublime as categories to describe the object “God.” Instead these become ways in which we engage with the world. Yet, as we affirm the world in love, we indirectly sense that in letting go of God we have, in fact, found ourselves at the very threshold of God. — Peter Rollins
The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move - so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow. — B. H. Liddell Hart
Ironically, the Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel in the Persian Gulf I mentioned earlier who are fighting terrorism will provide more support indirectly to this war in Iraq than most of the 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there. — Paul Cellucci
If we recognise that every ecosystem can also be viewed as a food web, we can think of it as a circular, interlacing nexus of plant animal relationships (rather than a stratified pyramid with man at the apex)… Each species, be it a form of bacteria or deer, is knitted together in a network of interdependence, however indirect the links may be. — Murray Bookchin
In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack.. the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers. — Sun Tzu
So long as Muslims continue looking towards Western civilization as the only force that could regenerate their own stagnant society, they destroy their self-confidence and, indirectly, support the Western assertion that Islam is a "spent force". — Muhammad Asad
A science or an art may be said to be "useful" if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort of men, it promotes happiness, using that word in a crude and commonplace way. — G. H. Hardy
A true bond of friendship is usually only possible between people of roughly equal status. This equality is demonstrated in many indirect ways, but it is reinforced in face-to-face encounters by a matching of the posture of relaxation or alertness. — Desmond Morris
A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour. — Jonathan Swift
The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and so to speak, visible, while its evil effects are gradual and indirect and lay out of sight ... Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favor upon governmental intervention. — A. V. Dicey
The problem posed by indirect speech acts is the problem of how it is possible for the speaker to say one thing and mean that but also to mean something else. — John Searle
In Conclusion
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