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Difficulty Quotes

Browse 2667 quotes about Difficulty.

Difficulty Quotes

“My dear friend, to be both powerful and fair has always been difficult for mankind. Power and justice have always been seen like day and night; this being the case, when one of them is there the other disappears.”

Science Night Difficult Justice Powerful Cases Mankind Fairs Difficulty Dear Disappear Day And Night Dear Friend

Author:Mehmet Murat Ildan

“It is not intuitive ease I am after, but rather a point of view which is sufficiently definite to clear up some difficulties, and to be criticized in rational terms. (Bohr's complementarity cannot be so criticized, I fear; it can only be accepted or denounced - perhaps as being ad hoc, or as being irrational, or as being hopelessly vague.)”

Science Term Views Clear Difficulty Point Of View Accepted Rational Ease Ads Irrational Definite Vague Mechanic Intuitive Quantum Mechanics

Book:Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery

Source: Quantum Theory and the Schism in Physics: From the Postscript to The Logic of Scientific Discovery

“The chief difficulty of modern theoretical physics resides not in the fact that it expresses itself almost exclusively in mathematical symbols, but in the psychological difficulty of supposing that complete nonsense can be seriously promulgated and transmitted by persons who have sufficient intelligence of some kind to perform operations in differential and integral calculus.”

Source: The decline and fall of science

“Yet the widespread planetary theories, advanced by Ptolemy and most other astronomers, although consistent with the numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain equalizing circles, which made the planet appear to move at all times with uniform velocity neither on its deferent sphere nor about its own epicycle's center.”

Made Moving Science Certain Planets Theory Difficulty Circles All Time Data Consistent Spheres Uniforms Adequate Astronomers Velocity

Author:Nicolaus Copernicus

“There is another ground of hope that must not be omitted. Let men but think over their infinite expenditure of understanding, time, and means on matters and pursuits of far less use and value; whereof, if but a small part were directed to sound and solid studies, there is no difficulty that might not be overcome.”

Ifs Thinking Men Mean Matter Use Might Science Values Understanding Sound Study Overcoming Let Me Difficulty Infinite Pursuit Small Parts Expenditures

Book:The Great Instauration

Source: The Great Instauration

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”

Inspirational Funny Science Brain Education Empty Difficulty Emptiness Rubbish True Believer Empty Heads

Author:Eric Hoffer

“Truth is different from error in two respects: it is a little harder to prove and more difficult to admit.”

Littles Two Different Truth Science Difficult Truth Is Prove Difficulty Harder Errors

Author:Leo Errera

“Evolution ... is really two theories, the vague theory and the precise theory. The vague theory has been abundantly proved.... The precise theory has never been proved at all. However, like relativity, it is accepted on faith.... On getting down to actual details, difficulties begin.”

Has Beens Two Science Theory Evolution Difficulty Details Accepted Vague Precise Relativity

Author:Anthony Standen

“No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.”

Thinking Problem Form Science Simple Decision Mistake Essentials Elements Solutions Difficulty Concrete Vague No Problem

Author:J. P. Morgan

“To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.”

“...people today are so accustomed to pretentious nonsense that they see nothing amiss in reading without understanding, and many of them at length discover that they can without difficulty write in like manner themselves and win applause for it. And so it perpetuates itself.”

People Writing Today Science Reading Winning Understanding Difficulty Nonsense Length Accustomed Applause Pretentious

Book:Belief and make-believe: critical reflections on the sources of credulity

Source: Belief and make-believe: critical reflections on the sources of credulity

“The teacher manages to get along still with the cumbersome algebraic analysis, in spite of its difficulties and imperfections, and avoids the smooth infinitesimal calculus, although the eighteenth century shyness toward it had long lost all point.”

Long Stills Science Lost Teacher Century Difficulty Manage Analysis Spite Imperfection Smooth Shyness Algebra Calculus

Book:Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint: Volume I: Arithmetic, Algebra, Analysis

Source: Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint: Volume I: Arithmetic, Algebra, Analysis

“If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.”

Ifs Men Giving Years Humans May Science Courses Understanding Space Race Millions Conditions Evolution Difficulty Cells Human Race Appropriate

Book:The Principles of Biology

Source: The Principles of Biology

“Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.”

Matter Science Speak Common Education Audience Hard Work Degrees Doctors Difficulty Medicine Bounds Medical Common Sense Ratios Inverse

Book:Aequanimitas

Source: Aequanimitas

“We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The Man of Science, the Chemist and Mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may be the objects with which the Anatomist's knowledge is connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no knowledge.”

Source: Lyrical Ballads and other Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth (Including Their Thoughts On Poetry Principles and Secrets): Collections of Poetry which marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature, including poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Dungeon, The Nightingale, Dejection: An Ode

“Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1,000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition.”

“It is very remarkable that while the words Eternal, Eternity, Forever, are constantly in our mouths, and applied without hesitation, we yet experience considerable difficulty in contemplating any definite term which bears a very large proportion to the brief cycles of our petty chronicles. There are many minds that would not for an instant doubt the God of Nature to have existed from all Eternity, and would yet reject as preposterous the idea of going back a million of years in the History of His Works. Yet what is a million, or a million million, of solar revolutions to an Eternity?”

“In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.”

Source: Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays

“Observation by means of the microscope will reveal more wonderful things than those viewed in regard to mere structure and connection: for while the heart is still beating the contrary (i.e., in opposite directions in the different vessels) movement of the blood is observed in the vessels-though with difficulty-so that the circulation of the blood is clearly exposed.”

“One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion, and that the present expansion is a relic of the violence of this explosion. This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory even before detailed examination showed that it leads to serious difficulties.”

Life Ideas Bigs Science Universe Violence Serious Huge Difficulty Expansion Finite Bangs Explosions Examination Relics Nomenclature

Book:The nature of the universe

Source: The nature of the universe

“Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties are, if it is desired greatly enough.”

Ifs Matter Enough Science Practice Technology Progress Difficulty No Matter What

Book:Profiles Of The Future

Source: Profiles Of The Future

“Geology, perhaps more than any other department of natural philosophy, is a science of contemplation. It requires no experience or complicated apparatus, no minute processes upon the unknown processes of matter. It demands only an enquiring mind and senses alive to the facts almost everywhere presented in nature. And as it may be acquired without much difficulty, so it may be improved without much painful exertion.”

Mind May Matter Philosophy Facts Science Process Natural Alive Minutes Demand Difficulty Painful Complicated Senses Contemplation Department Geology Exertion Natural Philosophy

Author:Humphry Davy

“Science has not solved difficulties, only shifted the points of difficulty.”

Science Accounts Difficulty

Author:Charles Henry Parkhurst

“Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of facts will certainly reject my theory.”

Facts Science Theory Evidence Weight Difficulty Explanation Rejection Rejects Disposition Unexplained

Book:On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Source: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

“Mere numbers cannot bring out ... the intimate essence of the experiment. This conviction comes naturally when one watches a subject at work. ... What things can happen! What reflections, what remarks, what feelings, or, on the other hand, what blind automatism, what absence of ideas! ... The experimenter judges what may be going on in [the subject's] mind, and certainly feels difficulty in expressing all the oscillations of a thought in a simple, brutal number, which can have only a deceptive precision. How, in fact, could it sum up what would need several pages of description!”

“There was a golden period that I look back upon with great regret, in which the cheapest of experimental animals were medical students. Graduate students were even better. In the old days, if you offered a graduate student a thiamine-deficient diet, he gladly went on it, for that was the only way he could eat. Science is getting to be more and more difficult.”

Ifs Way Looks Science Difficult Animal Students Regret Periods Difficulty Medical Experiments Golden Diets Graduates Old Days Graduate Students

Author:George Wald

“On our planet, all objects are subject to continual and inevitable changes which arise from the essential order of things. These changes take place at a variable rate according to the nature, condition, or situation of the objects involved, but are nevertheless accomplished within a certain period of time. Time is insignificant and never a difficulty for Nature. It is always at her disposal and represents an unlimited power with which she accomplishes her greatest and smallest tasks.”

“We took on things which people might think would take a year or two. They weren't particularly hard. What was hard was believing they weren't hard.”

People Thinking Years Believe Two Hard Might Science Belief Research Difficulty

Author:Edwin Land

“Many have argued that a vacuum does not exist, others claim it exists only with difficulty in spite of the repugnance of nature; I know of no one who claims it easily exists without any resistance from nature.”

Knows Doe Science Nature Existence Claims Difficulty Resistance Spite Vacuums

Author:Evangelista Torricelli

“One of the principal obstacles to the rapid diffusion of a new idea lies in the difficulty of finding suitable expression to convey its essential point to other minds. Words may have to be strained into a new sense, and scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words. On the other hand, a happy nomenclature has sometimes been more powerful than rigorous logic in allowing a new train of thought to be quickly and generally accepted.”

“...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.”

Needs Firsts Hard Done Science Certain Felt Hard Work Degrees Overcoming Difficulty Luck Remains Fortune Starting Experiments Hypothesis Good Fortune Conceiving

Author:Christiaan Huygens

“To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but go straight on, 'to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason;' to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times resemble a will-o'-the-wisp.”

Knows Should May Reason Light Science Knowledge Research Fairs Criticism Difficulty Gates Inches Up And Down Reproach Adverse Investigators Recoil Wisps

Author:William Crookes

“Unfortunately what is little recognized is that the most worthwhile scientific books are those in which the author clearly indicates what he does not know; for an author most hurts his readers by concealing difficulties.”

Knows Littles Doe Book Science Hurt Knowledge Reader Difficulty Worthwhile Concealing

Author:Evariste Galois

“Philosophy would long ago have reached a high level if our predecessors and fathers had put this into practice; and we would not waste time on the primary difficulties, which appear now as severe as in the first centuries which noticed them. We would have the experience of assured phenomena, which would serve as principles for a solid reasoning; truth would not be so deeply sunken; nature would have taken off most of her envelopes; one would see the marvels she contains in all her individuals.”

“That no generally applicable law of the formulation and development of hybrids has yet been successfully formulated can hardly astonish anyone who is acquainted with the extent of the task and who can appreciate the difficulties with which experiments of this kind have to contend.”

Kind Success Law Science Development Appreciate Tasks Difficulty Experiments Hybrid

Author:Gregor Mendel

“The investigation of causal relations between economic phenomena presents many problems of peculiar difficulty, and offers many opportunities for fallacious conclusions. Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experience, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changes; he cannot, like the physicist, narrow down the issue to the effect of one variation at a time. The problems of statistics are in this sense far more complex than the problems of physics.”

“Time is in itself [not] a difficulty, but a time-rate, assumed on very insufficient grounds, is used as a master-key, whether or not it fits, to unravel all difficulties. What if it were suggested that the brick-built Pyramid of Hawara had been laid brick by brick by a single workman? Given time, this would not be beyond the bounds of possibility. But Nature, like the Pharaohs, had greater forces at her command to do the work better and more expeditiously than is admitted by Uniformitarians.”

Ifs Science Used Given Force Nature Greater Possibility Masters Keys Fit Built Difficulty Rate Bounds Command What If Bricks Pyramids Insufficient Workmen Pharaohs

Author:Joseph Prestwich

“When the difficulty of a problem lies only in finding out what follows from certain fixed premises, mathematical methods furnish invaluable wings for flying over intermediate obstructions.”

Problem Science Lying Certain Findings Difficulty Mathematics Method Wings Flying Mathematical Fixed Premises Invaluable Obstruction

Author:Arthur M. Wellington

“The only objections that have occurred to me are, 1st that you have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adopting Natura non facit saltum so unreservedly. . . . And 2nd, it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all. However, I must read the book two or three times more before I presume to begin picking holes.”

Ifs Should Littles Two Book Moments Science Three Clear Conditions Criticism Difficulty Holes Unnecessary Three Times Variation Loaded Objections Adopting Little Moments

Author:Thomas Huxley

“Not only did he teach by accomplishment, but he taught by the inspiration of a marvelous imagination that refused to accept the permanence of what appeared to others to be insuperable difficulties: an imagination of the goals of which, in a number of instances, are still in the realms of speculation.”

Stills Inspiration Science Goal Imagination Numbers Accepting Teach Taught Difficulty Instance Accomplishment Realms Marvelous Speculation Permanence

Author:Edwin Howard Armstrong

“It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition-and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that-"Bugs"as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success-or failure-is certainly reached.”

Giving Firsts Littles Has Beens Shows Success Science Steps Study Months Labor Difficulty Faults Intuition Invention Arise Anxious First Steps Bugs Success Or Failure

Author:Thomas A. Edison

“Although the way ahead [for immunology] is full of pitfalls and difficulties, this is indeed an exhilarating prospect. There is no danger of a shortage of forthcoming excitement in the subject. Yet, as always, the highlights of tomorrow are the unpredictabilities of today.”

Way Today Science Subjects Danger Tomorrow Difficulty Excitement Shortage Highlights Exhilarating Pitfalls Unpredictability Forthcoming

Author:Cesar Milstein

“Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again.”