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Difficulty Quotes

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Difficulty Quotes

“Islamist-jihadist terrorism-a plague that has spread to almost every corner of the world-creates painful dilemmas for the peoples and decision makers who confront it. Its rapid, shape-shifting advance has sometimes confounded efforts to comprehend its origins, motives, and aims. Its sophistication in exploiting liberal values poses challenges and difficulties for the Western world, and for liberal democratic states in general, in attaining effective and balanced counter-terrorism policies.”

WorldSometimesStatesValuesChallengesDecisionEffortPolicyShapesDifficultyAimDemocraticWesternPainfulCornersSpreadTerrorismMotiveMakersBalancedPlagueRapidsShiftingDilemmaSophisticationWestern WorldIslamistsDecision MakersCorners Of The WorldCounter Terrorism
Author:Boaz Ganor
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“Liberty may be an uncomfortable blessing unless you know what to do with it. That is why so many freed slaves returned to their masters, why so many emancipated women are only too glad to give up the racket and settle down. For between announcing that you will live your own life, and the living of it lie the real difficulties of any awakening.”

KnowsGivingMayRealLyingLibertyMastersBlessingGiving UpDifficultySlaveAwakeningGladSettlingUncomfortableSettling DownRacketAnnouncingLive Your Own Life
Book:Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest
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“Charity is not a potency of the soul, because if it were it would be natural. Nor is it a passion, because it is not in a sensitive potency in which are all passions. Nor is it a habit, because a habit is removed with difficulty; charity, however, is easily lost through one act of mortal sin. Therefore charity is not something created in the soul.”

IfsSoulWould BePassionLostNaturalSinHabitDifficultyCharityMortalsSensitivePotencyMortal Sin
Author:Thomas Aquinas
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“It is often hard to secure unanimity about the borders of legislative power, but that is much easier than to decide how far a particular adjustment diverges from what the judges deem tolerable. On such issues experience has over and over again shown the difficulty of securing unanimity. This is disastrous because disunity cancels the impact of monolithic solidarity on which the authority of a bench of judges so largely depends.”

HardIssuesParticularJudgingDependsEasierAuthorityDifficultyImpactSecureBordersSolidarityAdjustmentBenchesTolerableUnanimityDisunity
Author:Learned Hand
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“Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today -- that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.”

PeopleWritingHas BeensTodayPastHouseMemoriesMarriageStreetsCenturyFieldsDifficultyLipsChiefsAssociationEchoesEnglish Words
Author:Virginia Woolf
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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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“The wishes of the people, seldom founded in deep disquisitions, or resulting from other reasonings than their present feelings, may not entirely accord with our true policy and interest. If they do not, to observe a proper line of conduct for promoting the one, and avoiding offence to the other, will be a work of great difficulty.”

PeopleIfsMayFeelingsWishInterestLinesPolicyDifficultyReasoningAvoidingPromotingAccordOffence
Book:The Life of General Washington: First President of the United States
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“Our conceptions of morality, as all our other ideas, pass through a course of development; the difficulty comes in adjusting our conduct, which has become hardened into customs and habits, to these changing moral conceptions. When this adjustment is not made, we suffer from the strain and indecision of believing one hypothesis and acting upon another.”

BelieveMadeIdeasSufferingCoursesActingMoralDevelopmentHabitMoralityDifficultyCustomsConceptionStrainHypothesisAdjustmentIndecisionHardenedAdjusting
Book:Democracy and Social Ethics
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“If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but perhaps he is never so altogether wrong and pig-headed and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by those who add the possession of prejudices to the other almost insuperable difficulties of understanding him.”

IfsTryingSometimesMightUnderstandingTroubleDifficultyPrejudiceAddPossessionPigsUnderdogUnderstanding Him
Book:Twenty Years at Hull-House, with Autobiographical Notes, by Jane Addams. With a Foreword by Henry Steele Commager, Drawings by Norah Hamilton
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“The difficulty in our education up till now lies, for the most part, in the fact that knowledge did not refine itself into will, to application of itself, to pure practice. The realists felt the need and supplied it, though in a most miserable way, by cultivating idea-less and fettered "practical men." Most college students are living examples of this sad turn of events. Trained in the most excellent manner, they go on training; drilled they continue drilling.”

MenWayNeedsIdeasFactsLyingTurnsFeltPracticeEventsExampleStudentsCollegeGoes OnPureTrainingDifficultyPracticalsMiserableExcellentApplicationRealistCultivatingCollege StudentsDrilling
Book:The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism
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“But what of the voice and judgment of conscience? The difficulty is that we have a conscience behind our conscience, an intellectual one behind the moral. ... We can see quite well that our opinions of what is noble and good, our moral valuations, are powerful levers where action is concerned; but we must begin by refining these opinions and independently creating for ourselves new tables of values.”

WellsActionValuesVoicePowerfulBehindsMoralOpinionJudgmentCreatingIntellectualConscienceConcernedDifficultyTablesNobleLeversRefiningValuation
Author:Georg Brandes
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“Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. And this new sense of sin only contributes further to the enervation of leisure, for the rich as well as the poor. The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.”

WellsEnoughCultureSinPoorRichTraditionDifficultyCrisisAcceptedEfficientLeisureVirtuousEfficiencyCompulsionCarrying On
Author:Clement Greenberg
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“Among the idle rich, boredom is one of the most common causes of unhappiness. People who have difficulty in earning their living may suffer greatly, but they are not bored. Wealthy men and women become bored when they depend upon the theater for their enjoyment instead of making their own lives interesting.”

PeopleMenMaySufferingCausesWealthInterestingCommonRichDependsMen And WomenDifficultyTheaterBoredEnjoymentBoredomUnhappinessWealthyIdleEarning
Author:Andre Maurois
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“What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will.”

PeopleIfsWantImportantDifficultUnderstandingSpecialSubjectsOvercomingDifficultyObviousIntellectSignificantInstructionContrast
Book:Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951
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“Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena.”

ArtPhilosophySeemsForceNaturalPrinciplesSubjectsDesignOffersDifficultyResistanceMathematicalRelateAttractiveGravityFluidManualsForces Of NatureImpulsiveLevity
Book:Newton's Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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“It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions.”

MeanMatterBodyForceCausesDifferencesSpaceEffectsParticularArgumentDifficultyGuidesSensesObservationDesperateCause And Effect
Book:Delphi Collected Works of Sir Isaac Newton (Illustrated)
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“We have two distinct types of political organization to take into account; and clearly, too, when their origins are considered, it is impossible to make out that the one is a mere perversion of the other. Therefore when we include both types under a general term like government, we get into logical difficulties; difficulties of which most writers on the subject have been more or less vaguely aware, but which, until within the last half-century, none of them has tried to resolve.”

Has BeensTwoGovernmentLastsPoliticalTermHalfImpossibleSubjectsCenturyTypeOrganizationAccountsDifficultyMereLogicalResolvePerversionMake Out
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible.”

WorldIdeasSelfLightUniversePleasurePathCapableDiscoveryAll ThingsOrganizationDifficultyChaosSimplicityDeeperPhysicsSelf RealizationRealizationMannersSubstanceComplexityInterpretationChemistryPeculiarAtomsMomentaryDiscordOld Ideas
Author:Aleister Crowley
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“There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning. that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make us sensible of its force, that was at first requisite for its invention. When we leave our closet, and engage in the common affairs of life, its conclusions seem to vanish, like the phantoms of the night on the appearance of the morning; and 'tis difficult for us to retain even that conviction, which we had attain'd with difficulty.”

FirstsMaySeemsNightForceDifficultCommonSilenceMorningStudyDifficultyAffairConvictionAppearanceInventionIntenseConclusionReasoningSensibleClosetsConvincingPhantomsInconvenienceAntagonist
Book:A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections
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“Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable.”

WayRealGovernmentPassionOpinionDangerIndustryDifficultyAbsolutesScaredSecureImaginaryDecayCommerceCalculationsAvariceSpursObstinate
Author:David Hume
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“Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.”

KnowsMenWorldGivingFirstsBelieveTwoIdeasWholePurposeUniverseCausesExistenceDifficultyIntentionSakeCreatorAriseWhole WorldIgnorantConfusion
Book:The Guide for the Perplexed
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“Let the church come to God in the strength of a perfect weakness, in the power of a felt helplessness and a child-like confidence, and then, either she has no strength, and has no right to be, or she has a strength that is infinite. Then and thus, will she stretch out the rod over the seas of difficulty that lie before her, and the waters shall divide, and she shall pass through, and sing the song of deliverance.”

ChildrenLyingSongFeltWaterChurchPerfectSeaWeaknessDifficultyInfiniteDividesHelplessnessDeliverance
Book:Strength and beauty: A baccalaureate sermon, delivered at Williamstown, Ms. August 17, 1851
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“I want my street to be crazy, I want my avenues, shops and buildings, to enter into a crazy dance, and this is why I deform and distort their outlines and colours. However I always come up against the same difficulty, that if all the elements were one by one deformed and distorted excessively, if in the end nothing remained of their real outlines, I would have totally effaced the location that I intended to suggest, that I wished to transform.”

IfsWantRealEndsCrazyStreetsBuildingElementsDifficultyCome UpColourShopsLocationAvenuesOutlinesBeing Crazy
Author:Jean Dubuffet
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“Were we to still be circumcising the hood of the female clitoris, we would not have difficulty considering this a continuation of our tradition to keep girls sexually repressed. America's reflexive continuation of [male] circumcision-without-research reflects the continuation of our tradition to desensitize boys to feelings of pain, to prepare them to question the disposability of their bodies no more than they would question the disposability of their foreskins.”

StillsFeelingsBodyPainAmericaGirlBoysResearchFemaleTraditionDifficultyMalesConsideringHoodSexuallyRepressedContinuationCircumcision
Book:The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex
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“We have restricted humans from giving 'free' food to bears and dolphins because we know that such feeding would make them dependent and lead to their extinction. But when it comes to our own species, we have difficulty seeing the connection between short-term kindness and long-term cruelty; we give women money to have more children, making them more dependent with each child and discouraging them from developing the tools to fend for themselves. The real discrimination against women, then, is 'free feeding'.”

KnowsGivingHumansChildrenLongRealTermKindnessSeeingBearsToolsConnectionsDifficultySpeciesDiscriminationCrueltyDevelopingLong TermDependentFeedingExtinctionShort TermDiscouragingDolphinsFree Food
Book:The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex
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“This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence -- but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.”

IfsLifeHumansChildrenDoeEndsMotivationalFormLife IsExistenceStruggleMastersVictoryMessagesDifficultyAdversityObstaclesTalesUpliftingFairyHard TimesUnexpectedShyHardshipFairy TaleSevereUnjustEncouragingTough TimesOvercoming AdversityHuman ExistenceFairytaleWords Of EncouragementManifold
Book:The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales
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