Quotes about problems
page 53

“Freedom of conscience and freedom of choice are not the same; where conscience dictates, choice decides. Where freedom of conscience is at stake, the relevant right is to perform a duty, not to make a choice. This was the issue for Madison and Jefferson. Religious liberty addressed the problem of encumbered selves, claimed by duties they cannot renounce, even in the face of civil obligations that may conflict.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 3. Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Freedom

“One of the effects, among others, of modern science has been that of mortally wounding religion by posing in concrete terms problems which esoterism alone can resolve and which remain unresolved because esoterism is not heeded and is heeded less now than ever. Faced by these new problems, religion is disarmed, and it borrows clumsily and gropingly the arguments of the enemy, and this obliges it to falsify its own perspective imperceptibly and disavow itself more and more; its doctrine is certainly not affected, but false opinions borrowed from its repudiators corrode it insidiously "from within", as witnessed by modernist exegesis, the demagogic leveling of the liturgy, Teilhardian Darwinism or the "sacred art" of surrealist and "abstract" persuasion.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2006, Light on the Ancient Worlds, World Wisdom, 27, 978-0-941532-72-3]
Miscellaneous, Religion

Religion, Art, Science, Falseness

“It's amazing how even with the language barrier women still communicate. You talk to women around the world and you find out we all have the same problems.”

Beverly White (1928–2021) American politician

As quoted in Tooele Transcript-Bulletin https://archive.ph/rZrYW (October 12, 1995) State in regards to the World Conference on Women, 1995

Women, World, Communication

“Suffering is admittedly one of the central problems of human existence; but this is because we have a suspicion that it is all for nothing.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

If we had a certainty about meaning, the suffering would be bearable. With no certainty of meaning, even comfort begins to feel futile.
Source: Frankenstein's Castle (1980), p. 89

Suffering

“Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved, take a deep breath.”

Kimsa Sok (2003) Cambodian tour guide

Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/2101720-kimsa-sok-life-is-a-journey-to-be-experienced-not-a-problem/

Life

“If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.”

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

There is no indication that Einstein said this. According to Quote Investigator, the earliest publication of a quote similar was in a collection of articles about manufacturing in 1966, when an employee of the Stainless Processing Company wrote a piece titled "The Manufacturing Manager's Skills." The article attributed the quote to an unnamed professor at Yale, by saying, "If I had only one hour to solve a problem, I would spend up to two-thirds of that hour in attempting to define what the problem is." (See, 1966, The Manufacturing Man and His Job by Robert E. Finley and Henry R. Ziobro, "The Manufacturing Manager's Skills" by William H. Markle (Vice President, Stainless Processing Company, Chicago, Illinois), Start Page 15, Quote Page 18, Published by American Management Association, Inc., New York. Verified on paper). https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/22/solve/
Disputed
Variant: If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.

World

“I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Time

“Effective people are not problem-minded; they're opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Source: Stephen Covey Official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=374674680694534&set=a.310931753735494

People

“The human problem?”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

I asked, somewhat offended.
She put her arm around me. “Forgive me, Gretamara, but your race as a whole has the unfailing habit of fouling its nest, killing its original planet, and doing its best to kill any others to which it is moved. Because we love and admire the human race for its many good qualities, we call this not ‘the human condition,’ meaning an irrevocable state, but ‘the human problem,’ one we wish to solve. The effort has gone on for some millennia, without result, and some of those involved in the effort are beginning to believe it is a waste of time and treasure.”
Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 32, “I Am Gretamara/On Mars” (pp. 276-277)

“We will not meet the problems of tomorrow by talking about yesterday's concepts.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Text of television interview with Mike Wallace, New York, New York, October 17 and 18, 1960, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 310
1950s, Television interview with Mike Wallace (1960)

“The problem we have is making sure that we do not inflict harm on ourselves, by leaving the EU with no deal.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Jeremy Corbyn risks scuppering no-confidence vote, says Jo Swinson https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49468218 BBC News (26 August 2019) Post premiership

“The secret to solving a problem always lies in finding the most suitable path: reflect, try, don't give up, be constant and you will get it.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Il segreto per risolvere un problema sta sempre nel trovare la strada più adatta: rifletti, prova, non arrenderti, sii costante ed otterrai.
Source: prevale.net

Secret

“In many problems there is always a side in your favor, you just have to identify it.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In molti problemi c'è sempre un lato a tuo favore, devi solo identificarlo.
Source: prevale.net

“Nature is entirely synergetic and because your problems of representing a society ignorant of such fundamentals are greatly increased you need to pay great attention to learning how to comprehend synergy and thereafter how to educate all of humanity in the shortest time how to comprehend and usefully cope with omni-synergetic universe”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Presentation to U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee on World Game (1969)

Education, Nature, Learning, Universe

“I hope leftist teachers have stepped on their toes. I have a fundamental problem with teachers trying to impose their opinion. A teacher must be neutral.”

Tom Van Grieken (1986) Belgian politician

Fuss about TikTok video Tom Van Grieken (Vlaams Belang): "In 2024 we will present a bill to left-wing teachers". https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/09/01/ophef-over-tiktok-filmpje-tom-van-grieken/

Hope, Teachers

“You might be surprised to find this out, but sweets were a big problem for me when I was younger. It didn't matter what it was, I couldn't walk past it without buying it. Now I've cut sweets out. It actually took me several years to get to this point. Now I don't really like sweets anymore.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Lewandowski exclusive, pt II: 'We're stronger now'" https://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/Bundesliga/noblmd09-fc-bayern-muenchen-robert-lewandowski-exclusive-interview.jsp (2016)

Past

“I hope to see the kind of political culture that solves problems through dialogue and compromise, not through confrontation and conflict.”

Roh Moo-hyun (1946–2009) 9th President of the Republic of Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (25 February 2003)

Hope

“It is arguable that a closer contact between ethics and economics can be beneficial not only to economics but even to ethics. Many ethical problems have what we have been calling 'engineering' aspects, and some of them do, in fact, involve economic relations.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

Chap. 3 : Freedom and Consequences
1990s, On Ethics and Economics (1991)

“If you have a problem and you're also successful, everyone does whatever they can to keep it going. I see that a lot.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984) American actress and singer

"Mary Elizabeth Winstead: from scream queen to alcoholic in Smashed" in The Guardian (29 November 2012) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/29/mary-elizabeth-winstead-scream-queen-alcoholic-smashed

Success

“If we formulate the fundamental theory of nature in a timeless language, we have then the problem of recovering the familiar notion of time.”

Carlo Rovelli (1956) Italian physicist

"Forget time" (Aug, 2008)

Nature, Time

“I don't like modules. It's a sort of love/hate relationship. The problem with modules is the classification problem. When you have written a function you don't know in what modules you put it in.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

A Few Improvement to Erlang

Love, Hate

“Your first question must always be: what is the most difficult part of this problem that I am trying to solve and then try and solve that. If you can't solve the most difficult bit, give up! Seek advice, find somebody who can solve it!”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science

Question, Parting

“How to make a list? Collecting the data, that's the easy bit. Sorting it into categories is slightly more difficult. Shortening the list is the most difficult part. That a really difficult problem.”

Joe Armstrong (1950–2019) British computer scientist

The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science

Parting

“Sometimes the problem has to mature before the solution can mature.”

Kent Beck (1961) software engineer

“The Industrial Revolution was merely the beginning of a revolution as extreme and radical as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians, but the new creed was utterly materialistic and believed that all human problems could be resolved given an unlimited amount of material commodities.”

Karl Polanyi book The Great Transformation

Source: The Great Transformation (1944), Ch. 3 : "Habitation versus Improvement"

“The problem with this new generation is, they take everything as joking as funny. Even they don't think about tomorrow's life will hold on.”

Ayuel Monykuch (1997) South Sudanese Entrepreneur

Life, Thinking

“Going to trade school, that’s a good honest job, working as a machinist or at a steel plant. It seems like we forgot about that. People get massively indebted going to liberals arts schools and this is how we can deal with our student debt problem too.”

Scott Wagner (1955) American politician

Exclusive–Scott Wagner on Running for PA Governor: ‘My Campaign Is About’ Leadership and Solving Problems https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/02/13/exclusive-scott-wagner-on-running-for-pa-governor-my-campaign-is-about-leadership-and-solving-problems/ (13 February 2018)

People, School, Art

“There is a special need all the time. This is a day-to-day problem, not something that can be solved now and again with a few dollars of aid.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Great Approach (2001) p. 19

Time

“What does the Lord save us from? Sickness, problems, daily life concerns, difficult circumstances that each of us face! These all are part of the salvation because salvation is ultimate and comprehensive. It touches upon the inner self.”

Paul Marwan Tabet (1961)

Fifteenth letter of His Excellency Bishop Paul-Marwan Tabet To the Maronite Community of Canada Christmas https://www.maronitecalgary.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Christmas-Letter-2020-Bishop-Tabet.pdf (December 2020)

Life, Parting

“The typical user of a food bank is not someone that's languishing in poverty, it's someone who has a cash flow problem.”

Dominic Raab (1974) British politician (born 1974)

During an election debate hosted by the BBC https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/29/tory-mp-dominic-raab-jeered-over-food-bank-comments (29 May 2017) 2010s, 2017

Food

“The past is therefore a permanent dimension of the human consciousness, an inevitable component of the institutions, values and other patterns of human society. The problem for historians is to analyse the nature of this 'sense of the past' in society and to trace its changes and transformations.”

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

Chap. 2 : The Sense of the Past
On History (1997)

Nature, Sense, Change, Past

“All your problems are just illusions that will pass without a trace.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“If the next generation of people to take over the West does not know how to think, western civilization will come apart and it will be replaced in the way that civilizations before it have been. ...What we face is a very dire problem.”

Bret Weinstein (1969) biologist, professor, public intellectual

Speak Freely (Sept 14, 2018)

People, Way, Thinking

“An animal doesn’t need to develop curiosity and intelligence if it has no problems that need solving.”

Robert L. Forward book Dragon's Egg

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 1, “Prologue” Section 4 (p. 7)

Intelligence, Animals

“Any problem in computer science can be solved with another level of indirection.”

David Wheeler (computer scientist) (1927–2004) British computer scientist

Attributed to David Wheeler by Butler Lampson in his Turing Lecture https://web.archive.org/web/20070221210039/http://research.microsoft.com/Lampson/Slides/TuringLecture.doc (17 February 1993) Lampson uses the phrase without attribution in Authentication in distributed systems: theory and practice https://doi.org/10.1145/138873.138874 (November 1992)

Science

“The kind of problem that literature raises is not the kind that you ever 'solve.'”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Whether my answers are any good or not, they represent a fair amount of thinking about the questions. The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 1: The Motive For Metaphor http://northropfrye-theeducatedimagination.blogspot.ca/2009/08/1-motive-for-metaphor.html

Literature

“I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November — on the third of November, to be precise — and I remember every instant since.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: General, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I

Truth

“We're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're creating laws. We're trying to deal with this. Deal with the obvious: We do not seem as a nation to be able to solve this problem the way we've been approaching it.”

Mike Gravel (1930–2021) American politician; United States Senator

NPR Democratic Candidates Debate

Law, Way, Mountain

“...when we have more minds concerned, any challenge shrinks proportionally. The solution to our greatest problems may simply be involvement.”

William Coperthwaite (1930–2013) American yurt builder

A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity

“I learned long ago not to exhaust myself grappling problems that time will carry away on its tide.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The Hallowed Hunt

Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 16 (p. 289)

Learning, Time

“We've been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. But at some point, maybe we will wake up and recognize that it was the politicians who created our problems.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Said in a Fox Business interview https://www.facebook.com/FoxBusiness/posts/weve-been-conditioned-to-think-that-only-politicians-can-solve-our-problems-but-/10153892947535238/ (February 9, 2016)

Thinking

“The hierarchy problem is the elephant in the room. ... And it originally showed up in the context of doublet–triplet splitting problem.”

Nima Arkani-Hamed (1972) American-Canadian physicist

[Where in the World are SUSY & WIMPS? - Nima Arkani-Hamed, 20 July 2017, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKVXxcbJ4YY] (12:36 of 1:40:31)

“The secret of science is to ask the right question, and it is the choice of problem more than anything else that marks the man of genius in the scientific world.”

Henry Tizard (1885–1959) British chemist

Undated attributed quote

Secret, World, Question, Science

“Workers who don’t share ownership of the robots will be reduced to political powerlessness far worse than their conditions today. We have the opportunity to solve this problem during the bootstrapping period while human labor is still needed for space industry.”

Sheyene Gerardi Venezuelan actor and model

[NASA CLASS Announces Collaboration With Actress Sheyene Gerardi, http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=38c46884-5abc-491a-89aa-c9bb0b71195c]

“The more rules you impose on a creative intelligence, of course, the fewer problems it can solve.”

John Barnes (1957) American science fiction writer

Short fiction, Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh (2012)

Intelligence

“The middle ground, roughly halfway between poetry and mathematics, is where philosophers can make their best contributions, I believe, yielding genuine clarifications of deeply puzzling problems.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (2013)

Mathematics

“I'm the same as a key piece of machinery in a steel mill, which is needed to make steel and to make money for the mill owners. If I break down, it's their problem. My problem is to build some kind of decent life for myself in this crazy unreal world in which I make my living.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

Source: As quoted in "The Frail Goddess," The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Bill Davidson, p. 78

Life, Money, World

“The establishment of troops in the cultural circles has this problem: the class element is relatively complicated. But, while a person cannot decide his own origin, his performance and attitude still count.”

Jiang Qing (1914–1991) Chinese political figure and wife of Mao Zedong

Source: Talk at the Peking Forum on Literature and Art (9 and 12 November 1967)

Personality

“The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Burning Page (2016), Chapter 24 (p. 315)

Decision

“I kept on reading, observing and reflecting on China’s political and social problems. Then in that year I suddenly felt a strong need to express my ideas. Comics is what I am good at, so I began to create political comics.”

Rebel Pepper (1973) Chinese political cartoonist

"Rebel with a cause: An interview with China’s most famous political cartoonist" in SAGE Journals https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422016657031a (29 June 2016)

Idea, Strong, Reading

“Overcapacity in steel production is a worldwide problem. The main reasons for this are the slow recovery of the global economy and shrinking demand.”

Liu Yandong (1945) Chinese politician

Source: "Chinese Vice Premier: Germany Can Trust Us" in Handelsblatt https://www.handelsblatt.com/english/politics/handelsblatt-interview-chinese-vice-premier-germany-can-trust-us/23542860.html?ticket=ST-3429686-pwkpyaicAuKXkd15MSqn-cas01.example.org (25 November 2016)

“What we need to do is make the pie bigger while looking for ways to share it in a more equitable way. The last thing we should do is to stop making the pie and just engage in a futile debate on how to divide it. Shifting blame for one’s own problems onto others will not resolve the problems.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "China’s Vice President Decries Technological Hegemony" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-vice-president-urges-governments-to-address-their-domestic-problems-11548258999 (23 January 2019)

Way

“Word inflation is a problem. You can try to change reality by changing the words, but you can’t. It just stops you from dealing with it. One of the bad guys in Nineteen Eighty-Foursays, ‘The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.’ It’s Orwellian, and Orwell never ends well.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: Sen. Chris Coons and Caitlin Flanagan, Natural Immunity, (2021)

Guy, Reality, Change

“[J]ustification of power must be the central problem. For it is through this problem alone that freedom and equality—or... justice—can be projected into the social and political reality... But to fascism the problem does not even exist except as a ridiculous relic of "Jewish liberalism."”

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

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 15

Justice, Reality, Freedom

“Some of us in those days thought that we had actually identified a disease, which this clearly is not
To make people ill, to give them an illness, was the wrong thing
The fundamental problem is that the improvement that you see, which is not really great in clinical trials, is not maintained”

Frederick Wolfe (1936) researcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-2801-6413

Source: "Drug Approved. Is Disease Real?" https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, New York Times (14 January 2008)

People, Disease

“As far as the Breakout is that...Breakout, itself is concerned, it was dark, and it was a rather rainy, misty night. We went at high speed, ran through the mine fields, which we knew like the palm of our hands...no problem at all.”

John D. Bulkeley (1911–1996) United States Navy Medal of Honor recipient

Recalling his experiences in evacuating General Douglas MacArthur from Corregidor during the 1941 Japanese invasion of the Philippines Source: "Better have the books corrected." https://corregidor.org/chs_mac/bulkeley.htm (1987)

Speed, Night

“Such speculation leads us nowhere and everywhere, but it makes no difference to our understanding of our immediate problems.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: Book 1, Chapter 1 “What the Sea God Discarded” (p. 165), Corum, The Queen of the Swords (1971)

Understanding

“I respect the institution of marriage as my parents were married until death literally parted them and they had a beautiful relationship. The problem is at some point, it begins to annoy you because of how much importance people have placed on it.”

Rita Dominic (1975) Nigerian actress

Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/04/i-wont-rush-into-marriage-to-please-the-public-rita-dominic/amp/ Rita Dominic on marriage.

Death, Marriage, People, Beauty

“When you have a big sister like me, your problem will never be cash but how to spend your money.”

Dora Akunyili (1954–2014) Pharmacist and Government Official

Source: http://saharareporters.com/2011/05/11/dr-damages-interviews-dora-akunyili-part-1 Dora at an interview with Dr. Damages

Money, Sister

“We must solve problems and avoid resorting to excuses.”

Ebrahim Raisi (1960) Iranian president

Source: 5 August 2021, Speech after oath taking ceremony in Tehran https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/463741/Raisi-officially-takes-oath-of-office-as-Iran-s-president

“We are putting all our weapons on the table to show that we (Germany) are strong enough to overcome any economic challenge that this (COVID-19) problem might pose.”

Olaf Scholz (1958) German politician, federal minister of finance and vice chancellor

Source: Olaf Scholz cited in: " Olaf Scholz: Who is Germany's new chancellor? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53735728" in BBC News, 8 December 2021.

Strong

“The way we practice religion today poses security problem in the country. If we take holiness serious, we will be able to tackle the problem of bombings in the country. There should be no sacred cows in the society. Everybody should look for the common good of the masses.”

Ayo-Maria Atoyebi (1944)

Source: Probe retired generals, Catholic Bishop urges Jonathan https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/probe-retired-generals-catholic-bishop-urges-jonathan/ (21 May 2012)

Religion, Way, Country

“This nagging dilemma has come to be known as the excess sulfur problem... Just as atmospheric scientists were beginning to grasp the importance of a volcano's sulfur emmisions, solid earth scientists were finding that they had no idea where all this sulfur was coming from.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

Naked Earth: the New Geophysics (1995)

Idea

“Why would someone use magic to kill a jazz musician in the middle of his set? I mean, I have my problems with the New Thing and the rest of the atonal modernists but I wouldn’t kill someone for playing it–at least not if I wasn’t trapped in the same room.”

Ben Aaronovitch book Moon Over Soho

Source: Moon Over Soho (2011), Chapter 1, “Body and Soul” (p. 19)

“The Nation belongs to everyone, not one or two specific people. The problems exist because we don't talk to each other and resolve them together. The problems arise from 'bloodthirstiness.'”

Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand

A television broadcast of King Bhumibol Adulyadej to Suchinda and Chamlong. (20 May 1992)
Source: [th:พระราชดำรัสพระราชทานแก่พลเอก สุจินดา คราประยูร และพลตรี จำลอง ศรีเมือง วันพุธที่ ๒๐ พฤษภาคม พ.ศ. ๒๕๓๕, A royal address given to General Suchinda Kraprayoon and Major General Chamlong Srimuang on Wednesday, 20 May 1992, th, http://kanchanapisek.or.th/speeches/1992/0520.th.html, 1999, 2013-12-07, Golden Jubilee Network]
Context: People can lose their minds when they resort to violence. Eventually, they don't know why they fight each other and what the problems they need to resolve are. They merely know that they must overcome each other and they must be the only winner. This no way leads to victory, but only danger. There will only be losers, only the losers. Those who confront each other will all be the losers. And the loser of the losers will be the Nation.... For what purpose are you telling yourself that you're the winner when you're standing upon the ruins and debris?

People

“In all my novels… I deal with the many problems and prejudices which exist for Black people in Britain today.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Source: On her major themes in “Interview with Buchi Emecheta” http://www.emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/buchi-emecheta-voice-09jul96.html (Philip Emeagwali)

People

“We need 70% entire population to get herd immunity. Not just adult population. Virus doesn’t check your Adhaar card. It maybe more than 70% even as the vaccines we’ve used have lower overall efficacy than mRNA vaccines. Define the problem properly to solve it.”

Chetan Bhagat (1974) Indian author, born 1974

Source: — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) 2021 at Twitter https://twitter.com/chetan_bhagat/status/1416715762748645376

“It was clear to me that all over the world publishing is a problem. Whether than it through self-censorship or overt censorship.”

Julian Assange book When Google Met Wikileaks

Source: Julian Assange, "When Google Met Wikileaks" (ORbooks, New York, 2014), p. 69

World

“Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book XI, 13

Hate

“External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 47

“I believe that the religious have two main tasks. On the one hand, as Ezekiel says, to behave like sentinels, not spies: when there is a threat we must warn and try to solve the problem before it explodes, it is a very big responsibility and if there are so many problems it means that the sentinels did not carry out their job well. Then we must be intercessors and when there is hostility between two groups, families or people, we have to mediate in truth. It is also essential to always keep prayer alive for the Country and for the protagonists so that God converts the heart. Now, it can be said, that the heart of many is of stone, it is up to us to make it flesh. Religions here seek a common line to promote peace.”

Jean Zerbo (1943) Malian Roman Catholic cardinal

Source: Cardinal Zerbo: Catholic sentinels and mediators among violence and conflict http://www.fides.org/en/news/68204-AFRICA_MALI_Cardinal_Zerbo_Catholic_sentinels_and_mediators_among_violence_and_conflict (24 June 2020)

God, Hostility, People, Truth

“In most Asian-American families, if a son or daughter says they want to be in theater, nobody's embracing them for that. And that's a problem. Because when you're discouraging those people at that age, it reduces the number of participants in the cultural life of the community.”

Rick Shiomi (1947) Canadian writer

Source: On the cultural attitudes regarding youth who want to enter the arts in “Art Talk with Playwright & Director Rick Shiomi” https://www.arts.gov/art-works/2016/art-talk-playwright-director-rick-shiomi in Art Works Blog (2016 Mar 31)

Life, People, Age, Family

“Be thankful you have problems because they are the key to your salvation.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

“After the so-called Velvet Revolution Slovakia became part of the Western Civilization, and along with a lot of good things, Christians here are confronted with problems such as relativism and materialism, but I think that a lot of people look forward to meeting the Pope.”

Marek Forgáč (1974) Slovak bishop

Source: Auxiliary Bishop of Košice: Pope comes to strengthen the faith https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-09/auxiliary-bishop-of-kosice-pope-comes-to-strengthen-the-faith.html (13 September 2021)

People, Thinking, Parting

“If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Understanding

“Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in experimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a prior probability approaching ½ of finding a significant difference in the theoretically predicted direction. Hence the corroboration yielded by "success" is very weak, and becomes weaker with increased precision. "Statistical significance" plays a logical role in psychology precisely the reverse of its role in physics. This problem is worsened by certain unhealthy tendencies prevalent among psychologists, such as a premium placed on experimental "cuteness" and a free reliance upon ad hoc explanations to avoid refutation.”

Paul E. Meehl (1920–2003) American psychologist

Source: [Theory-testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox, Philosophy of Science, 34, 2, 1967, 103–115, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/288135]

Success

“The world's biggest problem is not sexism, racism, political polarization, war, or income inequality. The key never-ending crisis is that most people can’t or won’t think. Poor thinking skills cut cross all the usual lines to drag down societies like nothing else. Thinking well could alleviate or solve virtually all our problems.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

War, People, World, Thinking

“The evils and dangers of which I speak are of slow growth, and their cure can only be gradual. Unless Great Britain is able by a united and well-instructed effort to grapple with her economic problems, and unless she is worthy to be the heart of her world-wide establishment, you here in this hall today will live long enough to lose not only your inheritance, but your livelihood. The continuance of our present confusion and disintegration will reduce us within a generation, and perhaps sooner, to the degree of States like Holland and Portugal, which nursed valiant races and held great possessions, but were stripped of them in the crush and competition of the world. That would be a melancholy end to all the old glories and recent triumphs.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Rectorial address ("The present decline of Parliamentary government in Great Britain") to Edinburgh University (5 March 1931), quoted in The Times (6 March 1931), p. 19

World, Effort, Evil, Heart

“At the very mention of your name
I get shivers down my back and in my brain.
The parts that used to function normally
are now, as you can see,
acting very strange.
Oh, at the very mention of your name
I don't know why but if I were tied up in chains
I would somehow be released
all problems too would cease
my heart would never feel no pain.
At the very mention of your name.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"At The Very Mention Of Your Name" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "At The Very Mention Of Your Name" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNpIBp-wleI (song on YouTube. (Live performance in Japan, 1993.))

Pain, Feeling, Heart, Parting

“People predict by making up stories.
People predict very little and explain everything.
People live under uncertainty whether they like it or not.
People believe they can tell the future if they work hard enough.
People accept any explanation as long as it fits the facts.
The handwriting was on the wall. It was just the ink that was invisible.
People often work hard to obtain information they already have and avoid new knowledge.
Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic Universe. In this match, surprises are expected.
Everything that has already happened must have been inevitable.
A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said.
The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small.
So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative
The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.
It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place.”

Amos Tversky (1937–1996) Israeli psychologist

Source: Notes made by Tversky for a scientific paper, c.1972. Michael Lewis. "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World". Penguin, 2016 (ISBN 9780141983035).

People, Secret, World, Knowledge

“1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.
2. Lead from the front. Say, "Follow me!" and then lead the way.
3. Stay in top physical shape- physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.
4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.
5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their jobs. You can't do a good job if you don't have a chance to use your imagination or your creativity.
6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don't wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind.
7. Remain humble. Don't worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head.
8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.
9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to a successful leader is to earn respect- not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.
10. Hang Tough!

Never, ever give up.”

Dick Winters (1918–2011) American military personnel

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters (2006)
Source: Leadership at the Point of the Bayonet: Ten Principles for Success, p. 293

People, Way, Imagination, Courage

“Mountain climbing is an analogue of the research process in theoretical physics. In working on a problem in physics one is never assured of a solution, because there are many false leads and pitfalls. Likewise in climbing there is no certainty of attaining the summit; the route is often unknown, or sometimes one attains a false summit. But the important point is that if you reach the top, the view is enormous. There is no comparison between what you see from just below the summit and what you can see from the top. Similarly with finally solving an important problem in physics the view you get is enormous.”

Heinz R. Pagels (1939–1988) American physicist

Source: The Cosmic Code (1982), p. 272

Mountain, Falseness

“The problem isn't that the world isn't fair enough. It is, we aren't truthful enough.”

- Goa

Truth, World

“"You must tell them that there must be a new union or there will be chaos," he [Shevardnadze] implored me. That evening, when I hosted republic leaders for dinner — a mixed group of presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers — I saw around the table and in the conversation a microcosm of the post-coup Soviet Union’s potential — and its problems. Whatever euphoria that they felt with their post-putsch independence declarations had given way to a marked degree of realism. "Independence sounds nice, but we have to live, and we have to be practical," observed the Prime Minister of Moldova, Valeriu Muravsky. That was the persistent theme that I heard from every one of the republic leaders, with the sole exception of the Georgian Prime Minister, Vissarion Gugushvili, though even he spoke of the need for economic cooperation once Georgian independence was recognized internationally.”

James Baker (1930) Former U.S. Secretary of State

The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989-1992 (1995) by James Addison Baker, p. 531
1990s

Way

“It’s easier to solve problems if you don’t have to live with the solutions.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

“Part of the problem facing teaching in the contemporary world is that its status as a profession has been undermined by the contemptible view that only what makes money is admirable.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 19, “Teachers” (p. 83)

Money, World, Parting

“There is no doubt missionary work is not easy and it faces no few problems and challenges, old and new. But one this is certain: if the Lord calls us to such a demanding task it is because He will not fail to supply us with the means to achieve it.”

Crescenzio Sepe (1943) Italian Catholic cardinal

“We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done. We know you have to — you're tired of hearing the phrase, you got to flatten that curve where it's going up like this, people getting it, and then it comes down.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2020, March 2020

People

“When I think about it, the mission was not a highly dangerous affair. You could do something about it if there was a problem. But, looking back, I’d say we were pretty lucky.”

Richard E. Cole (1915–2019) career officer in the United States Air Force and participant in the Doolittle Raid (1915-2019)

"Dick Cole: The Last Doolittle Raider" https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/dick-cole-the-last-doolittle-raider/ (2017)

Thinking

“I have a problem in living which century I live. When I read those manuscripts, I'm taken away there. Sometimes I'm totally taken with them, with the monks and the ancient libraries and the ancient monasteries and then, when someone passes by me in their office and speaks English, I say, "What?" But then I realize I am in an English-speaking world.”

Getatchew Haile (1931–2021) Ethiopian-American philologist; scholar of the Ge'ez language

Preserving Words and Worlds https://onbeing.org/programs/columba-stewart-and-getatchew-haile-preserving-words-and-worlds/ (19 January 2009)

World, Reading

“Coaching teaches me a lot; mentally, it’s helping, but skill-wise, no. The juniors have the same problems every day, you have to remind them all the time. Adult players know their problems, so you don’t need to remind them every day, every single shot.”

Beiwen Zhang (1990) badminton player

"Beiwen Zhang – Adapting To Every Challenge" in Badminton Pan America http://www.badmintonpanam.org/beiwen-zhang-adapting-to-every-challenge/ (15 December 2020)

Time, Help

“Before discussing specific situations and conflicts it is essential to acknowledge that problems can be solved only after the primacy of conscience has been recognized.”

Marco Respinti (1964)

"Tai Ji Men Dizi as Global Ambassadors of Good Will" https://bitterwinter.org/tai-ji-men-dizi-global-ambassadors-of-good-will/

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, no American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

Justice

“I wasn't an especially rebellious child, but I can say I gave my parents a lot of trouble at times. Because I had a lot of guts and was always taking risks, I either got hurt or sometimes broke other people's things and caused problems. I always sparked a lot of trouble.”

Wei Jingsheng (1950) Chinese democracy activist and dissident

Interview with the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley (1998), Background

People, Parent, Time, Hurt

“The big problem is that your mind keeps reminding you of things when you can't do anything about them. It has no sense of past or future.”

David Allen book Getting Things Done

Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001), Ch. 1

Sense, Past, Future

“The problem we've encountered is the inept policies of the whole ruling class of the country, and we shouldn't be looking to the people for the reason”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

behind them
2013
Source: [Кличко: Я не вижу себя в правительстве Януковича. Нет смысла подымать этот вопрос, https://gordonua.com/news/maidan/kichko-ya-ne-vizhu-sebya-v-pravitelstve-yanukovicha-7366.html, 2022-06-13, gordonua.com]

People, Country

“Despite many problems to be resolved, we continue to progress confidently in developing and defending our beloved country, for the path to socialism is already open before us.”

Kaysone Phomvihane (1920–1992) first General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (1955-1992)

Revolution in Laos: Practice and Prospects (1981) (excerpts)

Confidence, Country

“The problem of locating photos often confirms the indifference to women’s presence in history, as reflected in the media, books, historical records, museums, university libraries.”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

Source: (es) El problema de localizar fotografías confirma la indiferencia ante la presencia de las mujeres en la historia, cosa que se refleja constantemente en los medios, libros, archivos históricos, museos y bibliotecas universitarias.

Women, Books, Photo, History

“Ignoring the problem means abandoning the next victims to their fate; even worse, it means abandoning the core values that sustain Western society.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

Source: 2010s, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Chapter 15, “Dishonor, Death, and Feminists” (p. 232)

Fate

“I well know that there are many people who press for swifter and more radical solutions of the problems before us.”

Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow (1887–1952) British politician, agriculturalist and colonial administrator (1887-1952)

10 January 1940, Speech at Orient Club, Bombay, also quoted in Speeches and Statements of the Marquess of Linlithgow, p. 229.

People

Quotes about problems page 53

Quotes about problems
page 53