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difficulty quotes

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“the merit in all things consists in the difficulty.” Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
“The man of character finds an especial attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.” Charles de Gaulle, The Edge of the Sword
“But the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory; for no occasion arises that can excuse a man for being guilty of injustice.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties
“where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“Every noble work is at first impossible.” Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present
“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.” Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
“Sex is difficult; yes. But those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. ” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées
“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences.” Karl Marx, Das Kapital
“Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves.” Winston Churchill, The Second World War
“Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth” George Eliot, Adam Bede
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?” George Eliot, Middlemarch
“In times of difficulty we must not lose sight of our achievements, must see the bright future and must pluck up our courage.” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
“The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration;— this may be called perfect virtue.” Confucius, Analects
“Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need some one to teach us the art of learning with difficulty.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education
“We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an excuse we say things are impossible.” François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” Karl Marx, Das Kapital
“Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.” William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“It is so hard to leave — until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” John Green, Paper Towns
“We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects, too, are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention, in finding out...” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“It is easy enough to do good once or twice, but to keep on doing good without getting disgusted with the ingratitude of those whom we have benefited, that is not so easy.” Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
“My soul should always look back and wonder at the mountains I had climbed and the rivers I had forged and the challenges which still await down the road. I am strengthened by that knowledge.” Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“Windmill or no windmill . . . life would go on as it had always gone on—that is, badly.” George Orwell, Animal Farm
“For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud. DO NOT COMPLAIN. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change...” Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
“There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.” Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
“This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?” Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly, and I have never turned my back upon one yet.” Isaac Asimov, Foundation
“The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and...” René Descartes, Discourse on the Method
“But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it.” Charles Bukowski, Factotum
“Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you—it's a wall that an active you runs up against.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“It made me aware that hard-won things are more valuable than those that come too easily.” Richard Branson, Screw It, Let's Do It
“If at times our actions seem to make life difficult for others, it is only because history has made life difficult for us all.” John F. Kennedy, State of the Union Address
“If there is anything disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it” Jane Austen, Persuasion
“Stick two different people with two different sets of expectations under one roof and it ain’t always going to be shrimp and grits on Easter.” Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One
“life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she might find herself some day in a difficult position, so that she should have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.” Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
“I didn’t mind basic training. It taught me that something that seems impossible at the start can be achieved.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

Related topics

achievement life work science will doubt challenge determination solution solitude excuse love success truth learning time courage strength understanding experience

Related authors

Rainer Maria Rilke (3)
George Eliot (2)
Maya Angelou (2)
Karl Marx (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
Jane Austen (1)
Isaac Asimov (1)
George Orwell (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Stephen King (1)
Confucius (1)
Marcus Tullius Cicero (1)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1)
Blaise Pascal (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
John F. Kennedy (1)
Adam Smith (1)
John Green (1)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1)
Winston Churchill (1)

Related sources

Letters to a Young Poet (3)
Das Kapital (2)
Letter to My Daughter (2)
Adam Bede (1)
Foundation (1)
On Duties (1)
The Prince (1)
State of the Union Address (1)
Analects (1)
Middlemarch (1)
Macbeth (1)
The Wealth of Nations (1)
The Portrait of a Lady (1)
Ethics (1)
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
Animal Farm (1)
Factotum (1)
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (1)
Persuasion (1)