Difficult And Easy Quotes

• All things are difficult before they are easy.

  Thomas Fuller

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  "Gnomologia". Book by Thomas Fuller, 560, 1732.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

  Morarji Desai

  Wrestling, Confucianism, I Hate

  Morarji Desai's speech at the 19th World Vegetarian Congress held at Mavhmkar Auditorium of Rafi Marg in New Delhi, India (November 18, 1967), later published in The British Vegetarian, March/April 1968.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.

  Saadi

  Sports, Patience, Wise Man Once Said

  343 Copy quote

• It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

  Confucius

  Missing Someone, Hate, Love You

  69 Copy quote

• According to the ancient Chinese proverb, A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

  John F. Kennedy

  Travel, New Beginnings, Journey

  Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Address to the Nation, delivered 26 July 1963

  74 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

  Laozi

  Uplifting, Journey, Taoism

  55 Copy quote

• It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

  Jonathan Ive

  Philosophical, Different, Growing

  56 Copy quote

• Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

  Laozi

  Effectiveness, Risk, Taoism

  18 Copy quote

• Education makes a people easy to lead but difficult to drive easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

  Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

  Leadership, Education, Teaching

  Attributed; no source found

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Change, Motivation

  Laozi (1905). “The Simple Way”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Encouragement, Political, Liberty

  Letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 2 Apr. 1790

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• On both difficult and easy terrain, you must know the 'tenable' and 'fatal' ground. Occupy tenable ground and attack on fatal ground.

  Sun Bin

  War, Terrain, Knows

  13 Copy quote

• When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

  Laozi

  Beauty, Beautiful, Long

  19 Copy quote

• The attractions of ceramics lie partly in its contradictions. It is both difficult and easy, with an element beyond our control. It is both extremely fragile and durable. Like 'Sumi' ink painting, it does not lend itself to erasures and indecision.

  Isamu Noguchi

  Lying, Ink, Ceramics

  26 Copy quote

• Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other. High and low rest upon each other. Voice and sound harmonize each other. Front and back follow one another.

  Laozi

  Voice, Long, Evil

  Laozi, Gia-fu Feng, Jane English (1972). “Tao te ching”, Random House Inc

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writing is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment-you know that's what you're in for, for whatever time it takes.

  Chinua Achebe

  Writing, Wrestling, Ideas

  48 Copy quote