Difficult Quotes - Page 15

• The United States needs serious change in its fiscal, entitlement, infrastructure, immigration, and education policies, among others. And yet a polarized and often paralyzed Washington has pushed dealing with these problems off into the future, which will only make them more difficult and expensive to solve.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Immigration, United States, Needs

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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.

  David Hume

  Morning, Night, Silence

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.339, 谷月社

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• In the name of Israel's God, if every man would do right, and when he has done what he knows is right, then stops till he knows what next, there never would be a jar in the camp. And I defy the man to come forward that ever led so large a people in such difficult and trying circumstances, in so much peace, as I have led this people during this campaign, with the help of God and my brethren.

  Brigham Young

  Men, Names, Israel

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• It is easy to get to a higher number when you are not asking anything difficult from yourself.

  Barack Obama

  Numbers, Asking, Easy

  "Obama Warns Cantor As Debt Talks Stall: ‘Don’t Call My Bluff’" by Sam Stein, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 13, 2011.

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• It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not.

  Kenneth Rexroth

  Verses, Commonplace

  Kenneth Rexroth, Bradford Morrow (1989). “More Classics Revisited”, p.54, New Directions Publishing

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• The Book of Revelation, difficult as it may be for "literalists," becomes much simpler when we read it typologically, as a mosiac of allusions to Old Testament prophecy.

  Northrop Frye

  Book, May, Old Testament

  "The Great Code: The Bible and Literature". Book by Northrop Frye, 1981.

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• Teaching literature is impossible; that is why it is difficult.

  Northrop Frye

  Teaching, Literature, Impossible

  Northrop Frye (2014). “The Northrop Frye Quote Book”, p.313, Dundurn

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• Mythological subjects always new. Modern subjects difficult because of the absence of the nude and the wretchedness of modern costume.

  Eugene Delacroix

  Costumes, Absence, Modern

  "Journal of Delacroix". Book by Hubert Wellington, translated by Lucy Norton, p.338, 1980.

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• It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Wealth, Scales, Adopted

  Thorstein Veblen (2016). “BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Premium Collection: 25+ Titles in One Volume: The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Higher Learning in America, The Vested Interests and the Common Man, On the Nature of Capital…: The Theory of the Leisure Class, The Beginning of Ownership, The Preconceptions of Economic Science, The Industrial System and the Captains of Industry, The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx…”, p.69, e-artnow

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• In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty.

  Thorstein Veblen

  Lines, Might, Canon

  Thorstein Veblen (1993). “A Veblen Treasury: From Leisure Class to War, Peace, and Capitalism”, p.89, M.E. Sharpe

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• It is easy to love one's enemy when one is making fine speeches; but so difficult to do so in the actual everyday work of life.

  Anthony Trollope

  Everyday, Enemy, Speech

  Anthony Trollope (1861). “Framley parsonage”, p.129

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• Speeches easy to young speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners.

  Anthony Trollope

  Speech, Easy, Young

  Anthony Trollope (2016). “The Duke's Children: Trollope's Works”, p.398, 谷月社

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• To get away well is so very much! And to get away well is often so very difficult!

  Anthony Trollope

  Get Away, Wells

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.1749, e-artnow

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• The theater's much the most difficult kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, you're so entirely restricted.... I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they've either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that's about all they can do.

  Harold Pinter

  Writing, Character, Doors

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• I have always found the female of the human species many times more difficult to understand than the male.

  Osamu Dazai

  Women, Males, Female

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.48, New Directions Publishing

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• It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.

  Donald Rumsfeld

  Government, Today, Secrecy

  "During Vietnam, Rumsfeld Criticized Administration For 'Credibility Gap'". The Chicago Tribune Interview, thinkprogress.org. April 13, 1966.

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• I would not leave anything to a man of action as he would be tempted to give up work; on the other hand, I would like to help dreamers as they find it difficult to get on in life.

  Alfred Nobel

  Giving Up, Men, Hands

  "Nobel, Dynamite and Peace". Book by Ragnar Sohlman, p. 249, 1929.

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• Temporary feelings of regret are a normal part of the mourning process. This helps us retrieve our lost dreams. If we hold on to regret, we risk trapping ourselves in a prison of unrealized dreams from which it is difficult to escape.

  Barbara De Angelis

  Dream, Regret, Mourning

  Barbara De Angelis (2007). “How Did I Get Here?: Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns”, p.215, Macmillan

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• If being an anti-art artist is difficult, being an anti-art art historian is a hard position indeed. His doctrinal revolutionism brings forth nothing new in art but reenacts upheavals on the symbolic plane of language. It provides the consoling belief that overthrows are occurring as in the past, that barriers to creation are being surmounted, and that art is pursuing a radical purpose, even if it is only the purpose of doing away with itself.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Past, Purpose

  "Art on the Edge". Book by Harold Rosenberg. Chapter: "What's New: Ritual Revolution", p. 260, 1975.

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• Difficult, say you? Difficult to be a man of virtue, truly good, shaped and fashioned without flaw in the perfect figure of four-squared excellence, in body and mind, in act and thought?

  Simonides of Ceos

  Men, Perfect, Mind

  "The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles". 429 BC.

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• It is difficult to think of an origin without wanting to go back beyond it.

  Terry Eagleton

  Thinking

  "Literary Theory: An Introduction". Book by Terry Eagleton, 1983.

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• It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist. The harm done is often difficult to repair.

  Cat Stevens

  Artist, Impact, Relief

  "Singer Islam Gets Libel Damages". news.bbc.co.uk. February 15, 2005.

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• Unfortunately, catastrophes or scandalous disclosures always have to happen before humanity realises that it is only its own mistakes that have led it into misfortune. These are all the more difficult to rectify, because in the main they have been made by the authorities, who will not commit suicide themselves, but in order to save their own skins, they would rather that all Life should perish before they acknowledge their errors.

  Viktor Schauberger

  Suicide, Mistake, Errors

  Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coats (2000). “The Fertile Earth – Nature's Energies in Agriculture, Soil Fertilisation and Forestry: Volume 3 of Renowned Environmentalist Viktor Schauberger’s Eco-Technology Series”, p.108, Gill & Macmillan Ltd

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• The transition from the concept of information in the technical (communication engineering) sense to the semantic (theory of meaning) sense was indeed difficult, if not impossible.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Communication, Engineering, Information

  "Readings in interpersonal & organizational communication" by Richard C. Huseman, (p. 35), 1977.

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• The outstanding feature of behavior is that it is often quite easy to recognize but extremely difficult or impossible to describe with precision.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Impossible, Easy, Behavior

  "Toward Definition of Mind" edited by Jordan Ma Scher, Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, (p. 92), 1962.

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