
“The way we see the problem is the problem.”
A collection of quotes on the topic of problem, people, use, doing.
“The way we see the problem is the problem.”
“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”
“In America, anyone can become president. That's the problem.”
“A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.”
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
“There is no solution because there is no problem.”
“We only think when confronted with a problem.”
“Kosovo is now the biggest problem confronting Yugoslavia”
Tito, as quoted in Julie Mertus' Kosovo: how myths and truths started a war (University of California Press, 1999), p. 22
Other
“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.
The Reason and the objective of Education Reform
Variant: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.
citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.
“The problem is that everybody treats teenagers like they're stupid.”
“I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.”
Teacher
“When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem.”
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."
Teacher
citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.
Education helps reduce social problems and improves quality of life
On the lightening of his skin.
Televised Interview with Oprah Winfrey (1993)
On "eyeing" for Mars, IAC 2016 meeting, presentation on sustainable Mars colonization.
On his relationship with Mary Austin, as quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).
“The problem is people are being hated when they are real, and are being loved when they are fake.”
“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”
“There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”
Speech to the Reichstag, 30 January 1939, as quoted at The History Place http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/threat.htm.
1930s
Source: Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/shigeru-miyamoto-interview Eurogamer.net, published on 31 March 2010
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?
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
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.
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.
“I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive.”
In "Auroville — The City Of Dawn in South India" (27 February 2009)
Sayings
Colin Powell in My American Journey (1995)
Misattributed
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
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.
"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981).
“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”
Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
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
“I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.”
“Most of the world's problems could be avoided if people just said what they meant.”
Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
“You will only be remembered for two things: the problems you solve, or the ones you create.”
“The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer”
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
“No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child”
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)
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
Source: The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, (1933), p. 147
National Prayer Breakfast speech, Washington, D.C. (3 February 1994) http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0039.html.
1990s
As quoted in NPR obituary http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/26/507022497/vera-rubin-who-confirmed-existence-of-dark-matter-dies-at-88
Lecture "Year of Distraction" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWXYNxUFdc, at 1:07.
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.
Nahj al-Balagha
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
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 1, p. 317
MS dedication to Boris Godunov, January 21, 1874. http://www.bklynnews.com/BklynRadio/boris%20godunov-1.htm
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
Brown, J. & Tucker, B. (2003). James Brown: The Godfather of Soul, p. 266. Thunder's Mouth Press: New York. ISBN 1-56025-388-6
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.
Designing the Future (2007)
Designing the Future (2007)
“Every problem is a gift - without problems we would not grow.”
“I don't have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can't get a drink.”
"Bad Liver and a Broken Heart", Small Change (1976).
Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Source: Requiem for a Dream
“The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.”
Source: On Life After Death
“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
“The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.”
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
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.
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.
“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”
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
Source: Marked
On 30th anniversary of the founding of Israel, in International Herald Tribune (11 May 1978)