Quotes about problems

A collection of quotes on the topic of problem, people, use, doing.

Best quotes about problems

Stephen R. Covey photo

“The way we see the problem is the problem.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
Richard Bach photo
Albert Einstein photo

“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
George Carlin photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Tupac Shakur photo
Marcel Duchamp photo
John Dewey photo

“We only think when confronted with a problem.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer
Josip Broz Tito photo

“Kosovo is now the biggest problem confronting Yugoslavia”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Tito, as quoted in Julie Mertus' Kosovo: how myths and truths started a war (University of California Press, 1999), p. 22
Other

Averroes photo

“This is one of the most intricate problems of religion.”

Part 3: Of Fate And Predestination; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Context: This is one of the most intricate problems of religion. For if you look into the traditional arguments () about this problem you will find them contradictory; such also being the case with arguments of reason. The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Qur'an and the Hadith.

Quotes about problems

Charles Bukowski photo

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

Keanu Reeves photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

It is mistakenly attributed to Stalin: there is no evidence that he ever said or wrote something like that.

This phrase from the novel "Children of the Arbat" (1987) by Анатолий Наумович Рыбаков (1911 — 1998). As Stalin said about the execution of military experts in Tsaritsyn in 1918: "Death solves all problems. No person and no problem. " Later, in his «Роман-воспоминание» (1997), Рыбаков wrote that the phrase Stalin "possibly from someone heard, perhaps, he came up with." This was Stalin's principle. I just, it briefly formulated."

Tim Burton photo
Pablo Neruda photo
Michael Jackson photo
Elon Musk photo

“It would be an incredible adventure. And life needs to be more than just solving every day problems. You need to wake up and be excited about the future”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

On "eyeing" for Mars, IAC 2016 meeting, presentation on sustainable Mars colonization.

Freddie Mercury photo
Bob Marley photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Whitney Houston photo
Frank Zappa photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Shigeru Miyamoto photo

“A good idea is something that does not solve just one single problem, but rather can solve multiple problems at once.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source: Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/shigeru-miyamoto-interview Eurogamer.net, published on 31 March 2010

Walter O'Brien photo
Angelina Jolie photo

“These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear.”

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador(2006)
Context: These problems do not disappear just because we do not hear about them. There is so much more happening around the world than what is communicated to us about the top stories we do hear. We all need to look deeper and discover for ourselves.... What is the problem? Where is it? How can we help to solve it?

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quote attributed to Picasso in TIME, October 4, 1976, Modern Living: Ozmosis in Central Park http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/07/child-art/ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918412,00.html
Disputed
Variant: All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Bertrand Russell photo

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Variant: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

The Mother photo
Karl Popper photo

“If we can’t solve our problems we must DESTROY our problems… One day incels will realise their true strength and numbers and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system. Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

As quoted in Rhys Blakely, "‘I will be a god. I will slaughter you like animals’", The Australian (July 19, 2014)
Bodybuilding.com, PUAhate and ForeverAlone posts

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Source: 1980s, That Benediction is Where You Are (1985), p. 18
Context: From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems — the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free.

Freddie Mercury photo
Erich Fromm photo
Nikki Sixx photo

“Sometimes I think I should just buy a blow-up party doll. Same level of intelligence, plastic, and full of air.

The problem is, I'd probably fall in love.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Attributed to Kierkegaard in a number of books, the earliest located on Google Books being the 1976 book Jack Kerouac: Prophet of the New Romanticism by Robert A. Hipkiss, p. 83 http://books.google.com/books?id=g_JaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor. In the 1948 The Hibbert Journal: Volumes 46-47 the quote is referred to as "the famous Kierkegaardian slogan" on p. 237 http://books.google.com/books?id=UuDRAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+famous+Kierkegaardian+slogan+life+is+not+a+problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor, which may be intended to suggest the phrase is Kierkegaard-esque rather than being something written by Kierkegaard. In reality this seems to be a slightly altered version of the quote "The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced" which appeared in the 1928 book The Conquest of Illusion by Jacobus Johannes Leeuw, p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=OFdVAAAAMAAJ&q=%22not+a+problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor.
Misattributed

Johnny Depp photo
Marilyn Manson photo

“Most of the world's problems could be avoided if people just said what they meant.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Charles Bukowski photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Haruki Murakami photo
Arthur Ashe photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

In some published transcripts or quotations of this speech a variant of this statement appears immediately before the quote by Churchill below, but was not said during Reagan's televised address on (27 October 1964). Though he did make variations of the speech elsewhere it is unclear exactly when and where he may have said used these precise words:
: They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
Later variant: For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.
:* California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech (5 January 1967) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Elton Mayo photo

“The problem is not that of the sickness of an acquisitive society; it is that of the acquisitiveness of a sick society.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 147

Tupac Shakur photo
Matka Tereza photo
Vera Rubin photo
Slavoj Žižek photo

“I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Lecture "Year of Distraction" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWXYNxUFdc, at 1:07.

Tom Watson photo

“All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.”

Tom Watson (1874–1956) American businessman

Actually a remark by Nicholas Murray Butler.
Quoted by Watson in comments about "Think" and attributed to Nicholas Murray Butler - IBM Archives: Comments on "THINK" - Transcript https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/multimedia/think_trans.html
Misattributed
Source: American Dental Association (1959) The Journal of the American Dental Association. Vol 59. p. 289.

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Nahj al-Balagha

Heinrich Himmler photo

“One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the S. S. men. We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else. What happens to a Russian and a Czech does not interest me in the least. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture: otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be tough and heartless where it is not necessary, that is clear. We, Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes up to me and says: 'I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them,' then I have to say: 'You are the murderer of your own blood, because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood….”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

Peter F. Drucker photo

“And no matter how serious an environmental problem the automobile poses in today's big city, the horse was dirtier, smelled worse, killed and maimed more people, and congested the streets just as much.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 317

Eckhart Tolle photo
Modest Mussorgsky photo

“I regard the people as a great being, inspired by a single idea. This is my problem. I strove to solve it in this opera.”

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) Russian composer

MS dedication to Boris Godunov, January 21, 1874. http://www.bklynnews.com/BklynRadio/boris%20godunov-1.htm

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well …. I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showing-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at 33 … only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centred, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done … except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Catherine L. Moore (7 February 1937), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 407-408
Non-Fiction, Letters

James Brown photo

“To make it in life, you and your wife need to be in the same business. That has been my problem all along. My wives didn't know what I was doing. I would come back home from the road to a stranger. That's no good.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

Brown, J. & Tucker, B. (2003). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, p. 266. Thunder's Mouth Press: New York. ISBN 1-56025-388-6

Emma Watson photo

“All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I’ve seen — and given the chance — I feel it is my responsibility to say something.”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

The "Burke quote" she uses here is a common but disputed attribution.
UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign (2014)
Context: You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing speaking at the UN. And it’s a really good question. I've been asking myself the same thing. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.
And having seen what I’ve seen — and given the chance — I feel it is my responsibility to say something. Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”
In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly — if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope that those words might be helpful.

Ajahn Maha Bua photo
Jacque Fresco photo
Jacque Fresco photo
Ennio Morricone photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
B.F. Skinner photo
Albert Einstein photo
George Orwell photo
Marvin Minsky photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Tom Waits photo

“I don't have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can't get a drink.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

"Bad Liver and a Broken Heart", Small Change (1976).

Douglas Adams photo

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

Source: On Life After Death

Sadhguru photo
Šantidéva photo
Blaise Pascal photo

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Variant: All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
Source: Pensées

Harlan Coben photo
Christopher Paolini photo
Mikhail Baryshnikov photo

“The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948) Soviet-American dancer, choreographer, and actor born in Letonia, Soviet Union
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1975) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102777
The last sentence is widely paraphrased as "The trouble/problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
Leader of the Opposition
Variant: They’ve got the usual Socialist disease – they’ve run out of other people's money.
Context: And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain – and Britain and Socialism are not the same thing... It's the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease – they’ve run out of other people's money.

Margaret Mead photo

“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in Talent Development for English Language Learners: Identifying and Developing Potential (2013) by Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D. SBN-13:9781618211057
2000s
Variant: Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.

Maya Angelou photo

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Nearly identical quote attributed to a 1995 TV show, Touched by an Angel https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0732136/quotes: Tess: No, hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it's never solved one yet.
Misattributed

Henry Rollins photo
George Orwell photo
Thomas Sowell photo
Herbert Marcuse photo
Golda Meir photo

“Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.”

Golda Meir (1898–1978) former prime minister of Israel

On 30th anniversary of the founding of Israel, in International Herald Tribune (11 May 1978)