Difficult Quotes - Page 17

• I think it's very difficult in the first go-round for congressional people and political people to understand the linkages that exist between us and the rest of the world. That we're not insular anymore.

  Henry Kaufman

  Thinking, People, Political

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• Before there was the Soviet Union that could inflame matters. Now you have states not as powerful as the Soviet Union, but states like Iraq, like Iran, and to some extent Syria, having made it possible for some of these groups to operate. So it is a very difficult situation.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Powerful, Iraq, Iran

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• If you're going to make a law, make a law that actually works. It's extraordinarily difficult.

  Eric Schmidt

  Law, Working It, Ifs

  Source: www.theguardian.com

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• You can understand Tunisia revolution as a failure to censor the internet. And Libya had that failure too. It's very difficult for governments that are autocratic and don't have broad popular support to be in power when a lot of people have these devices. That was what Arab Spring was about, that people could express this and lead to revolution.

  Eric Schmidt

  Spring, Government, People

  "Google's Big Tent event: porn, copyright, Eric Schmidt and all". www.theguardian.com. May 23, 2012.

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• I do think that the role of the Internet, and the way it's bringing everything into the home, has made a parent's job much more difficult. And it's harder to know what to do and how to do it. It's much, much harder.

  William J. Clinton

  Jobs, Home, Thinking

  President Clinton's Discussion with Students at T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, Virginia, clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov. April 22, 1999.

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• Getting my father to throw anything away was pretty difficult. He was not trying to hide who he was, and he said, you don't have to hide the fact that I'm manic-depressive. You can tell people that's who I am. It's - explains a lot about your situation.

  Maya Forbes

  Father, Who I Am, People

  "'Infinitely Polar Bear' Director Relives Childhood With Mentally Ill Parent". "All Things Considered" with Audie Cornish, www.npr.org. June 22, 2015.

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• I have the deepest regret about 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the most difficult days I've ever had. I was in Lima, Peru, and had to fly back eight hours not knowing what happened in my own country, knowing thousands of my fellow citizens had died.

  Colin Powell

  Country, Regret, Eight

  "Secretary of State Colin Powell". Interview with Jim Lehrer, www.pbs.org. March 25, 2004.

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• Compromise" is so often used in a bad sense that it is difficult to remember that properly it merely describes the process of reaching an agreement. Naturally there are certain subjects on which no man can compromise. For instance, there must be no compromise under any circumstances with official corruption, and of course no man should hesitate to say as much.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Men, Compromise, Remember

  Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses”, p.68, Courier Corporation

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• Under extremely difficult circumstances (Iraq) pursues the inherently complicated task of rebuilding the country. Yet Iraq continues, courageously, to reach for the promise of a democratic, federal and pluralistic state, where generations of oppressed Iraqis will regain their dignity, freedom and the right to join the civilized and progressive nations of the world.

  Jalal Talabani

  Country, Iraq, Promise

  "Keep U.S., British forces in Iraq, says Talabani". The Toronto Star, September 23, 2006.

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• Without an organisation that can work together, sometimes over a very long period, it's difficult to see new projects to fruition.

  Akio Morita

  Long, Working Together, Fruition

  "Made in Japan : Akio Morita and Sony" by Akio Morita, Edwin M. Reingold, Mitsuko Shimomura, (p. 170), 1986.

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• I loved Latin -- the grammar, the difficult tenses, the history -- but for some reason I was very bad at it, shamefully and blushingly bad at it. ... In moments of stress the embarrassment of how bad I was at Latin -- a subject I loved -- really hit me. It was like being laughed at by someone you desperately loved.

  Peter Greenaway

  Stress, Latin, Moments

  Peter Greenaway (1999). “Eight and a half women”, Dis Voir Editions

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• I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.

  G. H. Hardy

  Good Man, Example, Waste

  "Ramanujan: Twelve Lectures on Subjects Suggested by His Life and Work". Book by G. H. Hardy, 1940.

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• Bradman is a whole class above any batsman who has ever lived: if Archimedes, Newton and Gauss remain in the Hobbs class, I have to admit the possibility of a class above them, which I find difficult to imagine. They had better be moved from now on into the Bradman class.

  G. H. Hardy

  Class, Imagine, Newton

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.28, Cambridge University Press

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• It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir.

  Seamus Heaney

  History

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996”, p.422, Macmillan

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• Women receive easily the most difficult assignments.

  Tarja Halonen

  Assignments

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• They [Afghans] understand the difficult truth that their best hope of freedom lies in a temporary experience of imperial rule.

  Michael Ignatieff

  Lying, Hoping For The Best, Temporary

  "Nation-Building Lite" by Michael Ignatieff, www.nytimes.com. July 28, 2002.

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• Why did the generals who have been so ready to term me a complaisant and incompetent yes-man fail to secure my removal? Was that all that difficult? No, that wasn't it; the truth was that nobody would have been ready to replace me, because each one knew that he would end up just as much a wreck as I.

  Wilhelm Keitel

  Men, Wrecks, Failing

  "The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel". Book by Walter Gorlitz, p. 52, 1966.

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• At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words.

  Clarice Lispector

  Dream, Drinking, School

  "Near to the Wild Heart" by Clarice Lispector, (p. 43), 1943.

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• The first thing I did when I was forty years old, I put handcuffs on and I jumped off Alcatraz prison and swam to San Francisco handcuffed. That made national publicity. Then, there were three or four years where I would do more difficult feats. Another birthday I towed a thousand pound boat across the Golden Gate. On my 65th Birthday I towed 65 boats a mile and a half in Tokyo. On my 70th Birthday I towed 70 boats with 70 people in it with my feet and hands tied a mile and a half in Long Beach.... My next Birthday I will be 93. I'm gonna tow my wife across the bathtub.

  Jack LaLanne

  Beach, Hands, Years

  Interview with Antonia Venezia, aliveeastbay.com. March 2007.

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• In my mind I first felt like, Oh, I'll be back to work right after the babies are born. But then you don't want to. Even now, it's very difficult for me to leave them in the morning. It just tortures me. I'm like, It's been hours; are they wondering where I am? Do they know that I love them so much and I'm thinking only about them?

  Jennifer Lopez

  Baby, Morning, Thinking

  "Jennifer Lopez: Still Wild at Heart". Interview with Veronica Chambers, www.glamour.com. August 2, 2010.

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• Watercolour is not especially difficult, but I must warn you to steer clear of those pretty English watercolourists, so skilful and alas so weak, and so often too truthful.

  Camille Pissarro

  Truthful, Weak, Clear

  1883 Letter to his son Lucien, Jul.

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• It's difficult to talk to people who whisper even at home, afraid of Americans eavesdropping on them. It's not a figure of speech, not a joke, I'm serious.

  Vladimir Putin

  Home, People, Speech

  "Ask the President! Some of Putin’s Very Best Hotline Answers". Answer during the "Direct Line with Vladimir Putin", sputniknews.com. April 15, 2015.

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• Western civilization presents one of the most difficult tasks for historical analysis, because it is not yet finished, because we are a part of it and lack perspective, and because it presents considerable variation from our pattern of historical change.

  Carroll Quigley

  Civilization, Perspective, Historical

  Carroll Quigley (1979). “The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• You're a slave in your own country, White Man. Each year you get to keep less of the fruits of your labor; each year it gets more difficult to carry the burden the aliens have placed upon you; each year the cheap labor of aliens makes your future less secure; each year you retreat a few steps more into the world of slavery.

  George Lincoln Rockwell

  Country, Future, Men

  "White Power". Book by George Lincoln Rockwell, 1967.

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• The anger that you see expressed out there in Los Angeles, in my district this evening, is a righteous anger, and it's difficult for me to say to the people, "Don't be angry." When people are angry and enraged, they do do senseless things. They do act even sometimes out of character, and that's why it is the responsibility of America to try and avoid putting people in these kinds of situations.

  Maxine Waters

  Character, Responsibility, America

  "Nightline", April 30, 1992.

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