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Difficult Quotes

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Difficult Quotes

“Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another person's hand can be. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally a part of our existence as human beings that its true impact upon us can be difficult to put into words. That power doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, either. From the time we are infants, we learn to associate the touch of a human hand with safety, with comfort, with love.”

NeedsHumansPersonsHandsSexDifficultHuman BeingsPowerfulExistenceComfortSafetyImpactTouchedAssociatesUnderestimateInfantPrimalHuman Hands
Book:Dead Beat: A Novel of The Dresden Files
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“The Bible makes clear a basic truth that we self-centered humans find difficult to accept, namely, that the natural universe was not created primarily for us. There is no doubt that God wants us to enjoy it and even use its resources to optimize a good life for ourselves. But the ultimate purpose of creation is worship. Nature and all living things were created to glorify God.”

WantHumansSelfUsePurposeUniverseEnjoyDifficultNaturalAcceptingClearDoubtCreationWorshipResourcesUltimateEnvironmentalNo DoubtGood LifeWant ULiving ThingsSelf CenteredGlorify
Book:Carpe Diem: Seize the Day
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“Everything that we think God has in his mind necessarily proceeds from our own mind; it is what we imagine to be in God's mind, and it is really difficult for human intelligence to guess at a divine intelligence. What we usually end up with by this sort of reasoning is to make God the color-sergeant of our army and to make Him as chauvinistic as ourselves.”

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Book:The Importance of Living
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“It may indeed prove to be far the most difficult and not the least important task for human reason rationally to comprehend its own limitations. It is essential for the growth of reason that as individuals we should bow to forces and obey principles which we cannot hope fully to understand, yet on which the advance and even the preservation of civilization depend.”

ShouldHumansMayImportantReasonIndividualForceDifficultGrowthPrinciplesDependsCivilizationProveEssentialsTasksLimitationBowsPreservationHuman Reason
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“As I toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me.”

HumansFormFoundDifficultChristImpossibleHeatDeitiesFootstepsOlivesAscentHuman Form
Book:The Lands of the Saracen: Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain
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“In the end, this is a difficult story to sum up. The making of the atomic bomb is one of history's most amazing examples of teamwork and genius and poise under pressure. But it's also the story of how humans created a weapon capable of wiping our species off the planet. It's a story with no end in sight. And, like it or not, you're in it.”

HumansEndsStoriesDifficultExamplePlanetsGeniusWeaponsCapableSightPressureSpeciesBombsTeamworkMost AmazingAtomic BombUnder PressurePoise
Author:Steve Sheinkin
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“All that remains is a fate whose outcome alone is fatal. Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty. A world remains of which man is the sole master. What bound him was the illusion of another world. The outcome of his thought, ceasing to be renunciatory, flowers in images. It frolics-\-\-in myths, to be sure, but myths with no other depth than that of human suffering and, like it, inexhaustible. Not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion.”

MenWorldHumansFacesJoySufferingPassionDifficultLibertyFateDivineFlowerMastersDramaIllusionRemainsDepthBoundsMythOutcomesGesturesSoleMe AloneAnother WorldFablesEphemeralHuman SufferingFatalityAll That Remains
Author:Albert Camus
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“On the one hand, society needs a common faith and vigorous institutions with the power to coerce; and on the other, the individual as a human soul or as the bearer of a new and possibly saving heresy, must be free. It is difficult enough to reconcile these two needs, but the problem holds another hazard: the need of action under the pressure of time.”

NeedsHumansTwoSoulEnoughProblemHandsActionIndividualDifficultCommonPressureInstitutionsSavingHuman SoulHeresyVigorousReconcileHazardsCoerce
Author:Jacques Barzun
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“God pity us indeed, for we are human, And do not always see, The vision when it comes, the shining change, Or, if we see it, do not follow it, Because it is too hard, too strange, too new, Too unbelievable, too difficult, Warring too much with common, easy ways, And now I know this, standing in this light, Who have been half alive these many years, Brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain, Saying "I am a barren bough. Expect, Nor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough."”

IfsKnowsWayYearsHumansHas BeensHardLightPainEasyDifficultMy OwnCommonHalfVisionToo MuchAliveStrangeSorrowStandingShiningFruitPityUnbelievableBarrenEasy WayBrooding
Author:Stephen Vincent Benet
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“Chess, which exists predominantly in two dimensions, is one of the world's most difficult games. Three-dimensional chess is an invitation to insanity. But human relationships, even of the simplest order, are like a kind of four-dimensional chess, a game whose pieces and positions change subtly and inexorably between moves, whose players stare dumbly while their powerful positions deteriorate into hopeless predicaments and while improbable combinations suddenly become inevitable. To make matters worse, some games are open to any number of players, and all sides are expected to win.”

WorldHumansKindTwoMatterMovingOrderThreeGamesWinningDifficultSidesPowerfulNumbersPiecesFourPlayerPositionExpectedChessInevitableCombinationStaringInsanityDimensionsHopelessSimplestInvitationsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsImprobablePredicaments
Book:Time and the Art of Living
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“Much indeed to be regretted, party disputes are now carried to such a length, and truth is so enveloped in mist and false representation, that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it. This difficulty to one, who is of no party, and whose sole wish is to pursue with undeviating steps a path which would lead this country to respectability, wealth, and happiness, is exceedingly to be lamented. But such, for wise purposes, it is presumed, is the turbulence of human passions in party disputes, when victory more than truth is the palm contended for.”

KnowsHumansCountryPoliticalPurposePassionWishDifficultWealthPartyStepsPathWiseVictoryTruth IsDifficultyPursueLengthSoleRepresentationPalmsPolitical PartiesDisputesMistRespectabilityPartisanshipTurbulenceWealth And Happiness
Book:The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“There is a note that comes into the human voice by which you may know real weariness. It comes when one has been trying with all his heart and soul to think his way along some difficult road of thought. Of a sudden he finds himself unable to go on. Something within him stops. A tiny explosion takes place. He bursts into words and talks, perhaps foolishly. Little side currents of his nature he didn't know were there run out and get themselves expressed. It is at such times that a man boasts, uses big words, makes a fool of himself in general.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWayTryingHumansHeartMayLittlesHas BeensRealSoulUseBigsRunningDifficultSidesVoiceFoolGoes OnNotesCurrentsTinyBoastExplosionsHeart And SoulWearinessHuman Voice
Book:Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories
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“Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same. Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor's own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.”

YearsHumansMayImportantDifficultSoundAttitudeConditionsSecurityHuman NatureInstitutionsRemainsInvestmentFinancialPassingPassingsCorporationsAffectedInvestorsRegulationTemperamentHingesFinancial Institutions
Book:The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel
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“Mathematical analysis is as extensive as nature itself; it defines all perceptible relations, measures times, spaces, forces, temperatures:;; this difficult science is formed slowly, but it preserves every principle which it has once acquired; it grows and strengthens itself incessantly in the midst of the many variations and errors of the human mind. It's chief attribute is clearness; it has no marks to express confused notations. It brings together phenomena the most diverse, and discovers the hidden analogies which unite them.”

MindHumansTogetherForceGrowsDifficultSpacePrinciplesMarkRelationErrorsChiefsMathematicalPreservesAnalysisConfusedMidstHuman MindAttributesDiverseTemperatureVariationAnalogiesIncessantlyClearnessMathematical Analysis
Book:The Analytical Theory of Heat
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“We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most “intellectual” piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning?”

IfsShouldHumansDoeRealSelfDifficultTermHuman BeingsPiecesMysteryPaintingIntellectualOrdinaryDifficultyEncountersProseAddressesDescriptionInner SelfSimplificationDemeaningOrdinary Days
Author:Geoffrey Hill
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“Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful!”

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Author:Napoleon Bonaparte
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“How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.”

PeopleIfsNeedsGivingHumansDoeEnoughProblemLeftSocialDifficultJusticeChanceHuman BeingsCompassionComfortableTreatsSocial JusticeSelfishTyrannyResistancePityTrustedCoercionTolerableUnselfishnessDifficult Problems
Author:Rose Macaulay
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“Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties -- one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: 'This is what happened'; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened.”

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Book:Moments of being: unpublished autobiographical writings
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“Louis [Leakey] was anxious to initiate a scientific study of these chimpanzees. It would be difficult, he emphasized, for nothing was known; there were no guidelines for such a field study; and the habitat was remote and rugged. Dangerous wild animals would be living there, and chimpanzees themselves were considered at least four times stronger than humans. I remember wondering what kind of scientist he would find for such a herculean task.”

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Author:Jane Goodall
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“I think we need to find a way to provide people with a reason that the average man on the street can grasp and embrace, that would cause him to move away from the centuries-old idea of the individual and individualism, and move toward a different concept of what it means to be human in a collective society. Unless he has that reason, unless he has a fundamental reason to do that, it's going to be very difficult to cause him to make that shift, in my view.”

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Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“How can we teach our children to be responsible beyond themselves and care for other human beings' welfare and for the welfare of the planet and all that it contains? It's a difficult lesson to convey, when, more than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, Prince William Sound is still experiencing the damaging effects.”

YearsHumansChildrenStillsCareDifficultSoundHuman BeingsTeachEffectsPlanetsLessonsResponsibleOur ChildrenDisasterWelfareBeing Responsible
Author:Gloria Reuben
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“In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments-which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”

PeopleHumansMayEndsWholeMomentsStoriesHappensPainLife IsPurposeCausesDifficultHuman BeingsSleepPleasureLevelsViewsExistenceMinutesMissingAspectEmptyFundamentalsAverageDeterminedMeaningfulSignificantThings HappenPlusHappy LifeDevotedMeasurementHuman ExistenceArcsPain And PleasureDifficult LifeSignificant Moments
Book:Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“Divine love, agape, is self-sacrificing love, which sounds difficult, as it is, and not very attractive. If the best image we have of love is of a man who's been tortured and hung upon a cross to die an excruciating death, this is something that human beings find very, very hard to understand as love. But it is the highest Christian image of love.”

IfsMenHumansSelfHardChristianDiesDifficultSoundHuman BeingsLove IsSacrificeDivineHighestCrossesAttractiveHungDivine LoveAgapeImages Of Love
Author:Kevin Hart
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“The relationship we have with God is not the same over a life; sometimes, as with human relationships, it goes through bad patches and sometimes it becomes very intense. It is a terrifying thing to have a relationship with one's creator, to spend one's life so that one is trying to converge with one's creator seems an extraordinarily difficult and sublime thing. But at the same time it's extremely simple. One of the things which perpetually amazes me is that at any moment or any day, anyone who is alive can talk with the creator of the cosmos.”

TryingHumansSometimesMomentsSeemsDifficultSimpleAliveCreatorIntenseCosmosSublimePatchesHuman RelationsHuman Relationships
Author:Kevin Hart
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“I think poetry can be a kind of secular way in which people can be led to approach the difficult parts of their life, where there's been loss, where there's sadness of a deep kind. If poetry can help people to be more at ease in expressing even to themselves a lot of the darkness and pain of ordinary human existence, then it's serving some kind of cultural role, perhaps more than a cultural role, perhaps it is serving something of a spiritual role.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayHumansKindHelpingPainSpiritualDifficultLossExistenceRolesDarknessSadnessApproachOrdinaryEaseServingSecularHuman Existence
Author:Kevin Hart
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“A lot of people hate my skepticism, and I think I understand why. The psychics offer wonders and endless possibilities in a world that often seems difficult and mundane. They promise health, wealth, wisdom, eternal life. But if you examine the record, it's not the psychics but the hard-nosed scientists who have actually delivered the things that improve human life. And, to me, science describes a world far more interesting than any psychic fantasy. It's a good world -- not perfect -- but it's ours. So we'd better learn to live with it, the way it is.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldWayHumansHardSeemsHateDifficultWealthPerfectInterestingWonderFantasyRecordsPossibilityPromiseOffersEternalScientistEndlessHuman LifeSkepticismPsychicsEternal LifeMundaneNot PerfectEndless PossibilitiesHealth Wealth
Author:James Randi
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“Leaving love behind is never easy, for it also asks that we leave behind the part of ourselves that did the loving. And yet for all but the very fortunate and the very foolish, this difficult transition is an inevitable part of the human experience, of the ceaseless learning journey that is life - because, after all, anything worth pursuing is worth failing at, and fail we do as we pursue.”

HumansAsksEasyDifficultLove IsBehindsFailingJourneyLeavingFoolishPursueInevitableFortunateTransitionHuman Experience
Author:Maria Popova
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