Quotes about problems
page 2

“If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.”

J. Paul Getty (1892–1977) American industrialist

As quoted in The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing (2003) by Pat Dorsey & ‎Joe Mansueto, p. 234
Attributed

“It is natural that people do not want to be involved with us too much. There is no problem down to the smallest egotistical longing which the Gestapo cannot solve. Regarded in this way we are, if a joke is permitted, looked upon as a cross between a general maid and the dustbin of the Reich.”

Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942) German Nazi official during World War II

To his officers on German Police Day (February, 1941), as quoted in Gestapo : Instrument of Tyranny (1956) by Edward Crankshaw, p. 103

People, Way, Nature

“There cannot be a greater mistake than that of looking superciliously upon the practical applications of science. The life and soul of science is its practical application; and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.”

William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

Lecture on "Electrical Units of Measurement" (3 May 1883), published in Popular Lectures Vol. I, p. 73, as quoted in The Life of Lord Kelvin (1910) by Silvanus Phillips Thompson

Life, World, Soul, Mathematics

“The problem is the fake products today are of better quality and better price than the real names … They are exactly the same factories, exactly the same raw materials but they do not use the names.”

Jack Ma (1964) Chinese businessman

Responding to the accusation that Alibaba sells fake merchandise. "Jack Ma Says Fakes 'Better Quality and Better Price Than the Real Names'” http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/06/15/jack-ma-says-fakes-better-quality-and-better-price-than-the-real-names/, CHINA REAL TIME REPORT, The Wall Street Journal (June 15, 2016)

“I'm addicted to perfection. Problem with my life is I was always also addicted to chaos. Perfect chaos.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/201008/interview-boxing-mike-tyson
On himself

Life, Perfection

“Who is like the wise man? Who knows the solution to a problem? A man’s wisdom lights up his face and softens his stern appearance. I say: “Obey the king’s orders out of regard for the oath to God. Do not rush to depart from his presence. Do not take a stand for anything bad; for he can do whatever he pleases, because the word of the king is absolute; who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?”

Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David

Ecclesiastes 8:1-4 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/ecclesiastes/8/, NWT

Wisdom, God, Light, Appearance

“All problems are unsolvable. The essence of the existence of a problem is that there is no solution. Looking for a fact means there is no fact. To think is not to know how to be.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 123
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Todos os problemas são insolúveis. A essência de haver um problema é não haver solução. Procurar um facto significa não haver um facto. Pensar é não saber existir.

Thinking

“The person who does not control his territory does not control his existence. If someone is not conscious, he is taken over, not only outwardly but also with the thoughts that assault him. He is very vulnerable to desires and feelings. For example, you live calmly with your wife, and then—catastrophe! Suddenly you lose control because you have fallen in love with another. You don't have to fall victim to that reality; what you have to do is navigate in it, overcome the winds and sandstorms. Amid the storms at sea and the signs, you must move forward calmly and look toward the port you're heading for. In New York, when I was filming The Holy Mountain, I had problems of all sorts. I soaked six or seven T-Shirts a night with my sweat. I went to see a Chinese sage that someone had recommended. He was a poet, a great master of tai chi, and a doctor. When he first saw me, he said, "What is your purpose in life?" I was disconcerted and did not answer. He continued, "If you do not tell me what is your purpose in life, I cannot heal you."”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

So I understood that if a ship crosses the sea without a purpose, it will arrive at no port. What prevents life from devouring us is having a purpose. The higher it is, the further it will carry us...
Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Love, Life, Feeling, Mountain

“I have no problem with them imitating [me]. It's a compliment. Everybody has to start out looking up to someone. For me it was James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Wilson, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On pop groups like N'Sync, as quoted in interview in TV Guide (1 November 2001)

“The progress of science is not a simple linear advance, each stage marking the solution of posing of problems previously implicit or explicit in it, and in turn posing new problems.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: The Age of Revolution (1962), Chapter 15, Science

Science

“There are those who deny me the right to speak of God, because I am not a believer. And I say that I have every right in the world. I want to talk about God because it is a problem that affects all humanity.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with "El País", 2009.

God, World

“"It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else. … The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women."”

Cyndi Lauper (1953) American singer, songwriter, actress and activist

Interview with Matthew Rettenmund in his book "Totally Awesome 80's" (1996), p. 149-150

Women, Men, Thinking

“I have to find my peace 'cause no-one seems to let me be,
False prophets cry of doom, what are the possibilities?
I told my brothers 'There'll be problem times and tears for fears,
We must live each day like it's the last,
Go with it, go with it, jam!”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Dangerous (1991)

Fear, Peace, Tear, Time

“All the people that were rooting for me to fail… at the end of the day, tomorrow they have to wake up and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. … They got the same personal problems they had today. And I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

James not bothered by those rooting for him to fail, Steve Ginsburg, Reuters, June 13, 2011 http://ca.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idCATRE75C0T420110613, James addressing fans after losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals.

Life, People, Way, Personality

“The problems are dissolved in the actual sense of the word — like a lump of sugar in water.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: 1930s-1951, Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 9 : Philosophy, p. 183

Sense, Water

“There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.
But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, Election victory speech (November 2008)

Decision, Falseness

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

Change, Fight, Cooking

“There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

Quoted at Vision '65 "New Challenges for Human Communications" (21-23 October 1965) and published in v 65: New Challenges for human communications, Volume 4, International Center for the Typographic Arts, Southern Illinois University (1965), p. 221

Children

“The employment of mathematical symbols is perfectly natural when the relations between magnitudes are under discussion; and even if they are not rigorously necessary, it would hardly be reasonable to reject them, because they are not equally familiar to all readers and because they have sometimes been wrongly used, if they are able to facilitate the exposition of problems, to render it more concise, to open the way to more extended developments, and to avoid the digressions of vague argumentation.”

Antoine Augustin Cournot Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth

Source: Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth, 1897, pp. 3-4; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 199)

Way, Mathematics, Nature

“The primary problem of political geography [is] the analysis of the degree to which the diverse regions of the state constitute a unity.”

Richard Hartshorne (1899–1992) American Geographer

Hartshorne (1955) "The functional approach in political geography". In Annals of the Association of American Geographers, p. 181

“The final emancipation called mokhsha for the beings who are bound to the problems of samsara can be attained by intense devotion to the Lord with the true knowledge of HIM.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Ya, Hindu Online

Knowledge

“The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities that we've ever seen in history. Now, what they will argue, is that they don't use this for nefarious purposes against American citizens. In some ways, that's true but the real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable to them and then saying, 'well I have a gun pointed at your head. I'm not going to pull the trigger. Trust me.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&feature=youtu.be&t=1048, 2016

Way, History

“As a nation-state, Iran has no problems with anybody. As a vehicle for the Khomeinist ideology it has problems with everybody, starting with the Iranian people. The Khomeinist regime makes no secret of its intense hatred for Iranian culture, which it claims has roots in “the age of ignorance” (jahiliyyah). To admire this regime because of Iranian culture is like admiring Hitler for Goethe and Beethoven and praising Stalin for Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. This regime has executed tens of thousands of Iranians, driven almost 6 million into exile, and deprived the nation of its basic freedoms. It has also killed more Americans, often through surrogates, than al Qaeda did on 9/11. Not a single day has passed without this regime holding some American hostages. Iran as a nation is a solid friend of America. Iran as a vehicle for the Khomeinist revolution is an eternal enemy of “The Great Satan.” The only realistic strategy for the United States would be to help it stop being the Islamic Republic and become Iran again. President Obama’s policy, however, points in the opposite direction. He has made it harder for the Iranian people to regain their human rights.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

What US leaders have never understood about Iran http://nypost.com/2015/07/19/what-us-leaders-have-never-understood-about-iran/, New York Post (July 19, 2015). New York Post

People, Secret, Age, Freedom

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, "Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem." If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Testimony before Congress (21 March 2007), as quoted in "Gore Implores Congress To Save The Planet" at CBS Evening News (21 March 2007) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/21/politics/main2591104.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2591104

Science, Reading, Baby

“If you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

At Live8 (2 July 2005) as reported in BBC News (4 July 2005) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/technology/4648003.stm 2000s

People

“In general, complexity and precision bear an inverse relation to one another in the sense that, as the complexity of a problem increases, the possibility of analysing it in precise terms diminishes. Thus 'fuzzy thinking' may not be deplorable, after all, if it makes possible the solution of problems which are much too complex for precise analysis.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

Zadeh (1972) "Fuzzy languages and their relation to human intelligence". in: Proceedings of the International Conference Man and Computer, Bordeaux, France. Basel: S. Karger, pp. 130-165. cited in Gaines (1976) "Foundations of fuzzy reasoning" in: International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 8(6), p. 624
1970s

Thinking, Sense

“Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.”

C.G. Jung book Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Chap. 11 (Psychotherapists or the Clergy), p. 229 http://books.google.com/books?id=mAsPAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Among+all+my+patients+in+the+second+half+of+life+that+is+to+say+over+thirty+five+there+has+not+been+one+whose+problem+in+the+last+resort+was+not+that+of+finding+a+religious+outlook+on+life%22&pg=PA229#v=onepage Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)

Life, Age, Religion

“When you "get an idea," or "solve a problem," or have a "memorable experience," you create what we shall call a K-line.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

K-Linesː A Theory of Memory (1980)
Context: When you "get an idea," or "solve a problem," or have a "memorable experience," you create what we shall call a K-line. This K-line gets connected to those "mental agencies" that were actively involved in the memorable event. When that K-line is later "activated," it reactivates some of those mental agencies, creating a "partial mental state" resembling the original.

Idea

“I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist

"Sharkwater" documentary
Context: I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.

Understanding, Thinking

“I think that people don't understand. As the Firesign Theater used to say, 'Everything you know is wrong.' But that is a very liberating understanding, because if everything you know is wrong, then all the problems you thought were insoluble can be framed differently.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Spacetime Tsunami http://www.deoxy.org/t_sunami.htm, Interview with Carla Sinclair, bOING bOING #10. Context: I think that people don't understand. As the Firesign Theater used to say, 'Everything you know is wrong.' But that is a very liberating understanding, because if everything you know is wrong, then all the problems you thought were insoluble can be framed differently. And there's a way to take the world apart and put it back unrecognizably. We don't really understand what consciousness is at the really deep levels. With some of the tryptamine hallucinogens, you see into possibilities where questions like, 'are you alive?' 'are you dead?' 'are you you?' seem to have been transcended. I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we're surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what's out there.

People, Understanding, Thinking

“The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

" New Textbooks for the "New" Mathematics http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/2362/1/feynman.pdf", Engineering and Science volume 28, number 6 (March 1965) p. 9-15 at p. 14 Paraphrased as "Precise language is not the problem. Clear language is the problem." Context: The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. It is only necessary to be precise when there is some doubt as to the meaning of a phrase, and then the precision should be put in the place where the doubt exists. It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.Pure mathematics is just such an abstraction from the real world, and pure mathematics does have a special precise language for dealing with its own special and technical subjects. But this precise language is not precise in any sense if you deal with real objects of the world, and it is only pedantic and quite confusing to use it unless there are some special subtleties which have to be carefully distinguished.

“This business of making people conscious of what is happening outside their own small circle is one of the major problems of our time, and a new literary technique will have to be evolved to meet it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," The Tribune (17 January 1947)
"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Context: This business of making people conscious of what is happening outside their own small circle is one of the major problems of our time, and a new literary technique will have to be evolved to meet it. Considering that the people of this country are not having a very comfortable time, you can't perhaps, blame them for being somewhat callous about suffering elsewhere, but the remarkable thing is the extent to which they manage to be unaware of it. Tales of starvation, ruined cities, concentration camps, mass deportations, homeless refugees, persecuted Jews — all this is received with a sort of incurious surprise, as though such things had never been heard of but at the same time were not particularly interesting. The now-familiar photographs of skeleton-like children make very little impression. As time goes on and the horrors pile up, the mind seems to secrete a sort of self-protecting ignorance which needs a harder and harder shock to pierce it, just as the body will become immunised to a drug and require bigger and bigger doses.

People, Business, Time

“Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Forgetting

“Age is not a problem. It's only a number. ”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

Age

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

People, Football, For Team

“The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved.”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface (8 May 1686)
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Art, Error, Drawing, Perfection

“There seems to be some problem about my identity. But no one can find it, because it’s not there—I have lost all interest in having a self. Being a person has always meant getting blamed for it.”

Rachel Cusk (1967) British writer

On abandoning being a memoirist in “Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/07/rachel-cusk-gut-renovates-the-novel in the New Yorker (Aug 2017)

Personality, Self-confidence

“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation.”

Gus Speth

Quoted by Daniel crockett
Source: [Crockett, Daniel, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html/Nature, Connection Will Be the Next Big Human Trend, Huffington Post, Aug 22, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20160105052014/http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/daniel-crockett/nature-connection-will-be-the-next-big-human-trend_b_5698267.html, January 5, 2016, yes]

Thinking, Science, Change, Loss

“There’s a distinct difference between confidence and boasting arrogance; when a problem hits a patch of difficult, the arrogant disappear but the confident remains in the fight.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2015

Confidence, Fight, Self-confidence

“If you’re the problem, then moving to a new town to start a new life is not going to work.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1998

Life

“The adaptation of spirituality is the only solution to the problems of the world. We must go beyond corporeal desires.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

World

“[...] there is no real Jewish “problem” in England. The Jews are not numerous or powerful enough, and it is only in what are loosely called “intellectual circles” that they have any noticeable influence.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Antisemitism in Britain (1945)

“Making your problem your promotion”

Engr.Abah Sule book Trusting God In Prayer

“Here’s my favorite prayer: “Thank you, God, for helping me to understand that this problem has already been solved for me.””

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Understanding, Help

“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them

“Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Fear

“We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped… We suffer, therefore we think.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: How Proust Can Change Your Life

Pain, Hope, Thinking, Suffering

“Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Perfection

“Let's worry about fixing the problem instead of the blame.”

Brandon Mull Fablehaven

Source: Fablehaven

“We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.”

Paul Hawken (1946) American environmentalist

Art, Leadership

“If you realize that you're the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something and grow wiser. Don't blame other people for your problems.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

People, Learning, Change

“It’s more difficult to create the problem than to solve it. All the person trying to solve the problem has to do is always respect the problem’s creator.”

Keigo Higashino The Devotion of Suspect X

Source: The Devotion of Suspect X

Personality

“Sandry: "There has to be something we can do."
Lark: "We're mages. We do what we can, but some problems are too big to fix."
Sandry: "Then I wish I weren't a mage. What good is magic, if you can't use it to help people.”

Tamora Pierce book Daja's Book

Source: Daja's Book

People, Help

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Life, People, Thinking

“Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Big Stone Gap

Life

“I had an accident."

"That seemes to happen a lot."

"It wasn't my fault."

"It never is."

"I just have bad luck."

"Or you're just trouble."

"You got a problem with that?"

"No problem at all."

"Oh my God! Are you going to help or not?”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

God, Bad luck, Help

“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

As quoted in This I Believe (1954), by Edward R. Murrow, p. 16
Variant: War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Source: This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of One Hundred Thoughtful Men and Women

War, Peace, Peaceful

“We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Faith

“Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

Love, Books, Way, Thinking

“It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Sex, Feeling, Understanding, Question

“He uses our problems for His miracles. This was my first lesson in learning to trust Him completely…”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Source: Tramp for the Lord

Learning

“I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

People, Religion, Freedom

“The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Time

“Military folk," Neal said with exaggerated patience, shaking his head. "The only way you know to solve problems is by beating them with a stick.”

Tamora Pierce book Lady Knight

Source: Lady Knight

Way, Patience

“If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“I missed you even when I was with you. That’s been my problem. I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there ain't nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It's just a aggravation.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men

“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

World, Hope, Music, Way

“Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

“Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses — for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson book The Decisive Moment

The Decisive Moment (1952), p. i; also in The Mind's Eye (1999)
Context: The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses — for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. Sometimes you light upon the picture in seconds; it might also require hours or days. But there is no standard plan, no pattern from which to work.

World, Search

“Stephanie had no problem doing what she
was told, just so long as she was given a good reason why she
should.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

“One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Water

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

People, Time, For Men

“There are terrible people who, instead of solving a problem, bungle it and make it more difficult for all who come after. Whoever can't hit the nail on the head should, please, not hit at all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

People

“Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

Wisdom, Courage

“The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Men, Fight

“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

As quoted in The Seven Deadly Sins (2000) by Steven Schwartz, p. 23

People

“We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

Life

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/

“One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Way

“Death is a problem of the living. Dead people have no problems.”

Norbert Elias (1897–1990) German sociologist

Death, People, Dead

“The Girl With Many Eyes
One day in the park
I had quite a surprise.
I met a girl
who had many eyes.

She was really quite pretty
(and also quite shocking!)
and I noticed she had a mouth,
so we ended up talking.

We talked about flowers,
and her poetry classes,
and the problems she'd have
if she ever wore glasses.

It's great to know a girl
who has so many eyes,
but you really get wet
when she breaks down and cries.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Girl, Flowers

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Happy

“Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Disease, Music

“Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem.”

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

Some sources indicate the phrase 'government is the problem' was not part of the speech. (E.g. yale.edu http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/reagan1.asp). Live recordings of the address demonstrate that Reagan did indeed use the phrase in question. See Ronald Reagan: First Inaugural Address http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IleiqUDYpFQ; start at 6:08 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981) Variant: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem Context: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

“Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”

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

Variant: Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

“Jesus insisted that the greatest ritual service is the service of human need. It is an odd thing to think that, with the possible exception of that day in the synagogue at Nazareth, we have no evidence that Jesus ever conducted a ‘church’ service in all his life on earth, but we have abundant evidence that he fed the hungry and comforted the sad and cared for the sick. Christian service is not the service of any liturgy or ritual; it is the service of human need. Christian service is not monastic retreat; it is involvement in all the tragedies and problems and demands of the human situation.”

William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic

Source: The Gospel of Matthew: Vol. 2, Chapters 11-28

Life, Sadness, Thinking

“If you want to make a permanent change, stop focusing on the size of your problems and start focusing on the size of you!”

T. Harv Eker (1954) American writer

Source: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Change, Motivational, Success

“I never said I didn't like kissing you. The problem is too many guys have like kissing you." - Erik Night to Zoey Redbird (Ch 26)”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Guy, Kiss, Night

“The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103
Variant: A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.
As quoted in Singing the Living Tradition (1993) by the Unitarian Universalist Association, p. 560
Context: What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U. S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.

“Death solves all problems — no man, no problem.”

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

This actually comes from the novel Children of the Arbat (1987) by Anatoly Rybakov. In his later book The Novel of Memories ( In Russian http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/auth_pages.xtmpl?Key=18637&page=307) Rybakov admitted that he had no sources for such a statement. Misattributed

Death

“The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.”

Henry Miller book Sexus

Source: The Rosy Crucifixion I: Sexus (1949), Ch. 9, p. 205

“The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Quoted in "Tennessee Williams" in Profiles (1990) by Kenneth Tynan (first published as a magazine article in February 1956)

People, Time

“Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Women

“I love you, too."
But this hopeful farewell does little to bring peace of mind, even now.
Loving you has never been the problem.
What's troubling me is how loving you may never be enough.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Fourth Comings

Love, Peace, Hope

“If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Love, Peace, Thinking, Peaceful

“Some people work an entire lifetime and wonder if they ever made a difference to the world. But the Marines don't have that problem.”

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

Letter to Lance Cpl. Joe Hickey http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,88163,00.html (23 September 1983), R.W. "Dick" Gaines http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/marinesquote.html refers in detail 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People, World

“I know it's not clothes that make women beautiful or otherwise, nor beauty care, nor expensive creams, nor the distinction of costliness of their finery. I know the problem lies elsewhere. I don't know where. I only know it isn't where women think.”

Marguerite Duras book The Lover

Source: The Lover

Women, Beauty, Thinking, Clothes

“It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Quotes about problems page 2

Quotes about problems
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