Quotes about trouble (1916 quotes, page 10)

“I am not the official Church Jesus who is accepted by policemen, bankers, judges, executioners, officers, church bosses, politicians and similar representatives of power. I am not your Superstar who keeps playing his part for you on the cross, and whom you hit in the face when he steps out of his role, and who therefore cannot call out to you, "I am fed up with all your pomp and all your rituals! Your incense is disgusting. It stinks of burnt human flesh. I can't bear your holy celebrations and holidays any longer. You can pray as much as you like, I'm not listening. Keep all your idiotic honours and laudations. I won't have anything to do with them. I do not want them. I am no pillar of peace and security. Security that you achieve with tear gas and with billy clubs. I am no guarantee for obedience and order either. Order and obedience at reform schools, prisons, penal institutions, insane asylums. I am the disobedient one, the restless one who does not live in any house. Nor am I a guarantee for success, savings accounts and possessions. I am the homeless one without a permanent home who stirs up trouble wherever he goes. I am the agitator, the invoker, I am the scream. I am the hippie, bum, Black Power, Jesus people. I want to free the prisoners. I want to make the blind see. I want to redeem the tortured. I want to cast love into your hearts, the love that reaches out beyond everything that exists. I want to turn you into living human beings, immortals.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Jesus Christus Erlöser (1971)

Love , People , School , Peace

“Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, " The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me."”
Quare deus optimum quemque aut mala valetudine aut luctu aut aliis incommodis adficit? quia in castris quoque periculosa fortissimis imperantur: dux lectissimos mittit qui nocturnis hostes adgrediantur insidiis aut explorent iter aut praesidium loco deiciant. Nemo eorum qui exeunt dicit 'male de me imperator mervit', sed 'bene iudicavit'.

Seneca the Younger Moral Essays

De Providentia (On Providence), 4.8, translated by Aubrey Stewart
Moral Essays

Men , God , Hostility , Health

“We wrongly consider the Shaikh as someone who can remove our distress, take our worries away and fulfil our needs. We forget that those personalities who are granted such offices have to undergo more worldly trials than us commoners; they face more diseases and encounter greater difficulties than others. This is the Sunnah of the holy Prophet-saws who said, “I had to face more troubles than any other Prophet.””

Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan (1934–2017) Pakistani Sufi leader

Disease , Personality , Forgetting

“Human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, “We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might”. That’s why this country has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.
— And States need to play by the rules towards each other, as well as towards their own citizens. That can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not inconvenience. It is doing the right thing. No State can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose — for broadly shared aims –- in accordance with broadly accepted norms.
— No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little — and the international community is among them. This we must change.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Truman Library address (2006)

World , Law , Communication , Nature

“Today we live in a chaos of straight lines, in a jungle of straight lines. If you do not believe this, take the trouble to count the straight lines which surround you. Then you will understand, for you will never finish counting.”

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928–2000) Austrian artist

Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture (1958)

Understanding

“There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders.
Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. For I believe that we can come through this time of trouble stronger than ever. Like troops who have been in combat, we have been tempered in the fire; we have been disciplined, and we have been educated.
Guided by lasting and simple moral values, we have emerged idealists without illusions, realists who still know the old dreams of justice and liberty, of country and of community.”

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

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

Life , War , People , Education

“I think in reviewing the doctrines connected with our Foreign policy which I have preached and defended during 40 years of my public life, you will not be surprised at the decision I am now compelled to take. I cannot accept any share of the responsibility for the acts of war which have taken place at Alexandria. I cannot see to what they may lead, and I know not to what greater wrong and mischief they may force the Government. I feel therefore compelled to withdraw from the Administration, and to ask you to place my resignation of the office I hold in the hands of the Queen. I bitterly lament the disappointment of many hopes as I separate myself from your Government. My feelings towards yourself are those of profound esteem and regard, and an overpowering sense of duty has alone forced me to the only course which seems now open to me. To add to your difficulties and to give you trouble is a cause of much unhappiness to me. I can only hope you will be able to judge me rightly and to forgive me.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Resignation letter to Gladstone (12 July 1882), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 433.
1880s

Life , War , Hope , Disappointment

“[Harry to Janice, about the financial situation] "…You're in real trouble."
"I know… But you have to have faith. You've taught me that."
"I have?" He is pleasantly surprised, to think that in thirty-three years he has taught her anything. "Faith in what?"”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

"In us. In life," she says.
Rabbit at Rest (1990)

Life , Faith , Thinking

“Now those who take a superficial and unreflecting view of things observe the outward appearance of anything they meet, e. g. of a man, and then trouble themselves no more about him. The view they have taken of the bulk of his body is enough to make them think that they know all about him. But the penetrating and scientific mind will not trust to the eyes alone the task of taking the measure of reality; it will not stop at appearances, nor count that which is not seen among unrealities. It inquires into the qualities of the man's soul.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Soul , Thinking , Reality , Appearance

“Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p. 14
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

Life , History , Universe , Change

“I know we live in troubled times, my friends, I know things which once stood up suddenly don't stand up anymore. I know that innocent people shopping or buying gas are often shot down, shot down for no reason. And it makes a nation nervous. Now, personally, I like the nation to be nervous. And in these nervous times, sometimes people come up to me, and they say, "Perhaps, Jack, you should tone down your rhetoric a bit. Perhaps, the stuff you say in between songs might be construed as, well, not very patriotic. Well, actually, Jack, you might get yourself in some big trouble." And I say to myself, "Oh! Trouble is my business, friend." In these uncertain times, it's not a good idea to give up on your values, and change your mind about the things you hold dear. It's not. I want to talk about someone who fell pretty damn hard, and this song is called "I Shot President Reagan, and I'm Gonna Do It Again and Again and Again and Again!"”

Jack Terricloth (1970)

Introducing "Secret Service Freedom Fighting U.S.A."
Live

People , Idea , Business , Change

“Put your troubles behind you and go on to bed”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Goodnight Rose
29 (2005)

“In recent times no problem has been more puzzling to thoughtful people than why, in a troubled world, we make such poor use of our affluence.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 12, Section VII, p. 145

People , World , Problem , Time

“They had left him for dead in the middle of a pool of blood in his own bedroom, his belly slit open like gaping barn doors, the hilt of the knife wedged against his sternum. But the only trouble was that he had stayed alive somehow, his life pumping out, managing to knock the telephone off the little table and dial me. Now he was looking up at me with seconds left and all he could do was force out the words, "Mike …there was no reason."”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Survival...Zero! (1970)

Life , Dead

“Time has told me
You're a rare, rare find,
A troubled cure for a troubled mind.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Time Has Told Me
Song lyrics, Five Leaves Left (1969)

Time

“But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere … Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust? The truth or falsity of evolution is a secondary matter. Rationalists must listen to the complaints of the Fundamentalists with a psychiatrist's "third ear", and respond to the more subtle messages.”

Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) American ecologist

Naked Emperors : Essays of a Taboo-Stalker (1982)

Truth , Lie , Fear , Family

“Nigel Barton (On TV): I feel I don't belong here, that's my trouble.
Interviewer (on TV): Well, where do you belong? At home?
Harry Barton: Of course!
Nigel Barton (on TV): No, I'm afraid I don't. Now it hurts to say this, of course, but it's the truth. Back at home, in the village, in the workingmen's club, with people I went to school with, I'm so much on the defensive, you see. They suspect me of making qualitative judgments about their environment, you understand, but it's not that I wish to do so. Yet I even find my own father looking at me oddly some times, waiting to pounce on some remark, some expression in my face, watching me like a hawk. I don't feel at home in either place. I don't belong. It's a tightrope between two different worlds, and I'm walking it.
Harry Barton: You're a bloody liar, Nigel!”

Dennis Potter (1935–1994) English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist

Stand up, Nigel Barton (1965)

People , Truth , World , School

“You get set on a path and, if you succeed, you get better parts, but of the same kind. If you don't take a lot of trouble, you get stuck like that.”

Fenella Fielding (1927–2018) English actress

Interview: Independent, Sunday 24 February 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lady-vanishes-what-ever-happened-to-fenella-fielding-785265.html

Parting

“Chremylus: And what good thing can [Poverty] give us, unless it be burns in the bath, and swarms of brats and old women who cry with hunger, and clouds uncountable of lice, gnats and flies, which hover about the wretch's head, trouble him, awake him and say, “You will be hungry, but get up!” […]
Poverty: It's not my life that you describe; you are attacking the existence beggars lead. […] The beggar, whom you have depicted to us, never possesses anything. The poor man lives thriftily and attentive to his work; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs. […] But what you don't know is this, that men with me are worth more, both in mind and body, than with [Wealth]. With him they are gouty, big-bellied, heavy of limb and scandalously stout; with me they are thin, wasp-waisted, and terrible to the foe. […] As for behavior, I will prove to you that modesty dwells with me and insolence with [Wealth]. […] Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy. […]
Chremylus: Then tell me this, why does all mankind flee from you?
Poverty: Because I make them better. Children do the very same; they flee from the wise counsels of their fathers. So difficult is it to see one's true interest.”

Aristophanés Plutus

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Pl.+535
Plutus, line 535-539 & 548 & 552-554 & 558-561 & 563-564 & 567-570 & 575-578
Plutus (388 BC)

Life , Women , Men , Hunger

“O hearken the words of his voice of compassion:
"Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken
Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions!
As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken,
But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken,
As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home."”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving

World , Faith , Home , Fashion

“From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

State of the Union Address to Congress http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/avwebsite/PDF/54text.pdf (7 January 1954)
1950s

“What is your trouble? Mistaken identity.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Ask the Awakened: the Negative Way (1963)

“people struggle, people fight
for the simple pleasures in their lives
but trouble comes from everywhere
it's a little more than you can bear”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Ophelia (1998), Break Your Heart

People , Pleasure , Fight

“I’m 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I’d only be 48. That’s the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Quoted from an an interview with Glenna Syse in Time Magazine (New York, 15 August 1960); Times editors corrected Thurber's arithmetic
Letters and interviews

Women , Age , Thinking

“.. Here I am shut up for the livelong day under lock and key and with keepers in a cell.... I will not deny that I would rather have died than have caused and suffered such trouble.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 9 March. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 579), p 25
1880s, 1889

Suffering

“Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

People , Country

“Islam and freedom are not compatible. You see it in almost every country where it dominates. There is a total lack of freedom, civil society, rule of law, middle class; journalists, gays, apostates — they are all in trouble in those places. And we import it.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Interview with USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/02/21/exclusive-usa-today-interview-with-dutch-anti-islam-politician-geert-wilders/98146112/ (21 February 2017)
2010s

Law , Freedom , Country

““It’s no use!” it was the custom of his grandfather to say. “There’s not a bit o’ use in having brains! All they do is get you into trouble! A lucky idiot’s ten times better off than a brainy man with a jinx on him! A smart man starts thinkin’, and he thinks himself into a jail cell if his luck is bad, and good luck’s wasted on him because it ain’t reasonable and he don’t believe in it when it happens! It’s taken me a lifetime to keep my brains from ruinin’ me! No, sir! I hope none o’ my descendants inherit my brains! I pity ‘em if they do!”
Hoddan had been on Darth not more than four hours. In that time he’d found himself robbed, had resented it, had been the object of two spirited attempts at assassination, had ridden an excruciating number of miles on an unfamiliar animal, and now found himself in a stone dungeon and deprived of food lest feeding him obligate his host not to cut his throat. And he’d gotten into this by himself! He’d chosen it! He’d practically asked for it!
He began strongly to share his grandfather’s disillusioned view of brains.”

Murray Leinster book The Pirates of Zan

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 4

Food , Hope , Thinking , Time

“Almost nobody in the peace camp will stand up and say that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamental problem for the world. Almost nobody in that camp is willing even to describe what the world will look like if the peace camp's advice is taken and Saddam is permitted to remain in power in Baghdad, working away on his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs… They are playing culture war, and they are disguising their eruptions as position-taking on Iraq, a country about which they haven't even taken the trouble to inform themselves. … For most in the peace camp, there is only the fog. The debate is dominated by people who don't seem to know about Iraq and don't care. Their positions are not influenced by the facts of world affairs.”

David Brooks (1961) American journalist, commentator and editor

[David, Brooks, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/837uvzrs.asp?pg=2, Saddam's Brain, Weekly Standard, November 11, 2002, May 24, 2011]
2000s

War , People , World , Peace

“At the back of their personal troubles, hopes and fears, this less immediate trepidation grew, this intangible suggestion of change, that most unforgivable of all heresies.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 59 “Presage” (p. 320)

Fear , Hope , Change , Personality

“As a rule, you'll not have much trouble having your way, if you are right.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Country Town Sayings (1911), p49.

Way

“Finally the Reichsfuehrer said, "Well, you've given me a good deal to thin about. I can hardly deny that. We'll see what comes of it." "The longer we wait, the more trouble we'll have doing it properly," Heydrich warned. "I understand that," Himmler said testily. "I ave to make sure I can get it moving without… undue difficulties, though." "As you say, sir!" Heydrich was all obedience, all subordination. Why not? Himmler played the cards close to his chest, but Heydrich was pretty sure he'd won.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 11

Understanding , Waiting

“In 2014, one of the key agendas of the BJP’s election campaign was highlighting the dismal management of the Indian economy, ironically under an ‘economist’ prime minister and a ‘know-it-all’ finance minister. We all knew that the economy was in the doldrums but since we were not in government, we naturally did not have the complete details of the state of the economy. But, what we saw when we formed the government left us shocked! The state of the economy was much worse than expected. Things were terrible. Even the budget figures were suspicious. When all of this came to light, we had two options – to be driven by Rajneeti (political considerations) or be guided by Rashtraneeti (putting the interests of India First)… Rajneeti, or playing politics on the state of the economy in 2014, would have been extremely simple as well as politically advantageous for us. We had just won a historic election, so obviously the frenzy was at a different level. The Congress Party and their allies were in big trouble. Even for the media, it would have made news for months on end. On the other hand, there was Rashtraneeti, where more than politics and one-upmanship, reform was needed. Needless to say, we preferred to think of ‘India First’ instead of putting politics first. We did not want to push the issues under the carpet, but we were more interested in addressing the issue. We focused on reforming, strengthening and transforming the Indian economy. The details about the decay in the Indian economy were unbelievable. It had the potential to cause a crisis all over. In 2014, industry was leaving India. India was in the Fragile Five. Experts believed that the ‘I’ in BRICS would collapse. Public sentiment was that of disappointment and pessimism.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi, Swarajya Interviews Prime Minister Modi, Interview, R Jagannathan- Jul 02, 2018 https://swarajyamag.com/economy/swarajya-interviews-prime-minister-modi-the-state-of-indian-economy
2018

Disappointment , Nature , Thinking , Light

“If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers anticipate aught amiss from them is the tacit rule in a military ship. And the more that some sort of trouble should really be apprehended the more do the officers keep that apprehension to themselves; tho' not the less unostentatious vigilance may be augmented.
In the present instance the sentry placed over the prisoner had strict orders to let no one have communication with him but the Chaplain. And certain unobtrusive measures were taken absolutely to insure this point.”

Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor

Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 23

Men , Communication

“Well, here we are, the Irish in America. The Irish have been coming to America for years, going back to the great famine when the Irish were on the run from starvation and a British Government that couldn't care less. Right up to today, you know, there are more Irish immigrants here in America today than ever — some illegal, some legal. A lot of them are just running from high unemployment, some run from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, from the hatred of the H Blocks, torture. Others from wild acts of terrorism like we had today in a town called Enniskillen, where eleven people lie dead, and many more injured, on a Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Statements made before a live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday, a song first recorded on the U2 album War (1983)
Rattle and Hum (1987)

People , Lie , Dead

“Not believing in something is not in itself a belief or a philosophy: it is the 'ism' at the end that tends to cause the trouble. Both atheists and believers can be as arrogant and witless as each other in frustrated debate, and people may choose strong and unapologetic words to raise awareness of the agenda. But despite the name-calling, it is still a fair point that to not believe in God is no more a 'belief in itself' than to not believe in the Loch Ness Monster, Poseidon or anything else one might personally consider far-fetched. Beyond that, there is only how you choose to express yourself.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Tricks of the Mind (2006)

God , People , Strong , Personality

“Even the word depression itself was the terminological product of an effort to soften the connotation of deep trouble. In the last century, the term crisis was normally employed. With time, however, this acquired the connotation of the misfortune it described.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 4, Section IV, p. 45

Effort , Time

“I did not expect them to try anything but I am alive at my age because I make a habit of being ready for trouble when it seems most unlikely.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 33, “Khatovar: Leave-taking” (p. 488)

Age

“I cannot see the word ‘troubled’ prefixing the name of some poor starlet who has been dragged through the mire of tabloid spite without vomiting directly onto the newspaper. Troubled by whom? Troubled by you, you fuckwits.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Books, Confessions of a Conjuror (2010)

“There are clouds, wind, smoke and dust and noise, over head and around, and there always will be; but no genuine thunder, with destructive bolt, menaces from any quarter of the sky. The real trouble with us was never our system or form of government, or the principles underlying it, but the peculiar composition of our people; the relations existing between them and the compromising spirit which controlled the ruling power of the country.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

People , Country

“Some ill-designing people had turned his brain, and carried him to the eastern part of the Mughal Empire, which would be the cause of much trouble and ruin to our authority.”

Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III (1736–1800) Mughal noble

Imad-ul-Mulk's letter to Mir Jafar the Nawab of Bengal, after the escape of Shah Alam II
Source: http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=hehJAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA123&dq=shah+alam+and+miran&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qNwRT8rjJ8P_-gbkk-GwAg&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=ill-designing&f=false

People , Parting

“Let us leave tomorrow’s trouble for the One who bore our troubles on the cross.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Encouraging The SCOAN congregation following the fulfillment of his prophecy about the death of Michael Jackson - "Prophet TB Joshua Predicted The Death Of Michael Jackson" http://www.africanews.com/site/PROPHET_TB_JOSHUA_PREDICTED_THE_DEATH_OF_MICHAEL_JACKSON/list_messages/25728 Africa News (June 29, 2009)

“The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science, their labour bore fruit.”

George Mikes (1912–1987) Hungarian-born British author

How to Be an Alien: A Handbook for Beginners and More Advanced Pupils (1946)

Way , Drink , Science , Tea

“Recently a courageous group of Arab and Muslim intellectuals wrote me a letter. In it, they said this: "The shore of reform is the only one on which any lights appear, even though the journey demands courage and patience and perseverance." The United Nations was created to make that journey possible. Together we must support the dreams of good and decent people who are working to transform a troubled region -- and by doing so, we will advance the high ideals on which this institution was founded.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2006, United Nations General Assembly speech (September 2006)

People , Dreams , Courage , Support

“Dear Christian Citizens,
You also were not any less deceived, and you believed that your troubles came from the tyranny of the entire Turkish people….”

Yane Sandanski (1872–1915) Bulgarian revolutionary

Manifesto to all Peoples of the Empire, 1908

People

“Trouble ahead, Trouble behind, and you know that notion just crossed my mind”

Robert Hunter (1941–2019) American musician

"Casey Jones"
Song lyrics, (1970)

“I can make a guess. There’s going to be trouble. Come to think of it, that’s a safe catch-all prophecy. Whatever happens in present circumstances there’s going to be trouble.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

Thinking

“Let all thy joys be as the month of May
And all thy days be as a marriage day:
Let sorrow, sickness, and a troubled mind
Be stranger to thee.”

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) English poet

To a Bride.

Marriage , Joy

“Children had rather be making of Tools and Instruments of Play; Shaping, Drawing, Framing, and Building, &c. than getting some Rules of Propriety of Speech by Heart: And those also would follow with more Judgment, and less Trouble and Time.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

8
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

Children , Time , Heart , Drawing

“I lay my harp on the curved table,
Sitting there idly, filled only with emotions.
Why should I trouble to play?
A breeze will come and sweep the strings.”

Bai Juyi (772–846) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"The Harp", in The White Pony: An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry (1949), ed. Robert Payne, p. 220

“Literary critics like Lionel Trilling … demand that our novels illuminate the manners and morals of prevailing society. Professor Trilling is right, because otherwise what use are they for us? But he is wrong-headed, because he does not see that the burden of proof is not on the artist but on our society. If such convenient criticism of prevalent life does not get to be written, it is likely that the prevailing society is not inspiring enough; its humanity is not great enough, it does not have enough future, to be worth the novelist’s trouble.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 214.

Life , Future

“The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, "Little children, love one another."”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 41 : Learning To Forget

Love , Life , Children , Hope

“It's mournful and troubling in a way that goes beyond ordinary movie manipulation. It burns clean.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://salon.com/ent/movies/review/2000/12/22/cast_away/index.html of Cast Away (2000)

Way

“We are sorry to trouble you again but the sufferings and needs of the 200 000 civilians for whom we are trying to care make it urgent that we try to secure action from your military authorities to stop the present disorder”

John Rabe (1882–1950) German businessman

18 December 1937

Suffering

“Mankind has in it a crushing need to feel superior. This doesn’t have to bother the very small minority who actually are superior, but it sure troubles the controlling majority who are not. If you can’t be really good at anything, then the only way to be able to prove you are superior is to make someone else inferior. It is this rampaging need in humanity which has, since pre-history, driven a man to stand on the neck of his neighbor, a nation to enslave another, a race to tread on a race. But it is also what men have done to women.
Did they actually find them inferior to begin with, and learn from that to try to feel superior to other things outside—other races, religions, nationalities, occupations?
Or was it the other way around: did men make women inferior for the same reason they tried to dominate the outsider? Which is cause, which effect?”

Theodore Sturgeon book Venus Plus X

Section 36 (p. 115)
Venus Plus X (1960)

Women , Men , Religion , Way

“On a live performance: "If you feel like tapping your feet, tap your feet. If you feel like clapping your hands, clap your hands. And if you feel like taking off your shoes, take off your shoes. We are here to have a ball. So we want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing."”

Art Blakey (1919–1990) American jazz drummer and bandleader

Source At the Jazz Corner of the World, Blue Note, 1959.

Shoe , Feeling

“My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Answers to Nine Questions (September 1896), answers to nine questions submitted by Clarence Rook, who had interviewed him in 1895
1890s

“I really am a happy, amusing fellow at heart. Trouble is I seem the only one left.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

As quoted in "Cary Grant is puzzled because you have No Time for Laughs" by Robert Ottaway in Picturegoer magazine (4 January 1958)

Heart , Happiness

“Is this the light at the end of the tunnel
Is this the end, the end of all my trouble
Is this the light at the end of the tunnel
Or just the light of another oncoming train.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Oncoming Train
Resurrection (2014)

Light , Training

“One must have lived on such diet to discover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's food become.”

Joseph Conrad book An Outpost of Progress

Tales of Unrest http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1202/1202-h/1202-h.htm. An Outpost of Progress (1902)

Food

“I argued that the human race should have known it was in for trouble, at least we in the United States should have, given how insane our way of life had become. Minor quit blowing into his harmonica long enough to say that John D. Rockefeller and the Bush family had made a deal with the Devil going back all the way to the 1900s.”

James Howard Kunstler book World Made By Hand

Source: World Made By Hand (2008), Chapter 38, p. 181

Life , Family , Way

“They may the better fish in the water when it is troubled.”

Richard Grafton (1511–1572) Printer in the Tudor era

Chronicles (I, 283).

Fish , Water

“If you loved as I do, she earnestly replied, you would not have so nearly lost me — these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you — you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. LIII : Conclusion; Helen to Gilbert

Love , Feeling , Soul , Birth

“Theology, for the most part, adopts the personal point of view the point of view of our personal wants, fears, hopes, weaknesses, and shapes the universe with man as the centre. It has no trouble to believe in miracles, because miracles show the triumph of the personal element over impersonal law. Its strongest hold upon the mind of the race was in the pre-scientific age. It is the daughter of mythology, and has made the relation of the unseen powers to man quite as intimate and personal. It looks upon this little corner of the universe as the special theatre of the celestial powers powers to whom it has given the form and attributes of men, and to whom it ascribes curious plans and devices. Its point of view is more helpful and sustaining to the mass of mankind than that of science ever can be, because the mass of mankind are children, and are ruled by their affections and their emotions. Science chills and repels them, because it substitutes a world of force and law for a world of humanistic divinities.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Source: The Light of Day (1900), Ch. III: Science and Theology

Men , Children , Age , World

“As so often in Indo-Pakistani and Hindu-Muslim comparisons, the argument is reminiscent of the inequality between the contenders in the Cold War: you could demonstrate for disarmament in the West, but to demonstrate for this in the East Bloc (except if it were for unilateral disarmament by the Western “war-mongers”) would have put you in trouble.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Who is a Hindu, (2001)

War

“Cricket's all right in spite of the newspapers, but the trouble is that three quarters of us don't know how to use our own gifts.”

Dudley Carew (1903–1981) English journalist, writer, poet and film critic

The Son of Grief (1936)

“There is a trouble called Twitter, the finest lies are here. Nowadays, social media is actually the headache of societies.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (1954) 12th President of Turkey from 2014

As quoted in "Erdoğan: Twitter denilen bir bela var" http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25446690/, NTV (June 2, 2013)

“ Now, to use the famous metaphor by Alfred Korzybski in his Science and Sanity (1933), this verbal world ought to stand in relation to the extensional world as a map does to the territory it is supposed to represent. If a child grows to adulthood with a verbal world in his head which corresponds fairly closely to the extensional world that he finds around him in his widening experience, he is in relatively small danger of being shocked or hurt by what he finds, because his verbal world has told him what, more or less, to expect. He is prepared for life. If, however, he grows up with a false map in his head […] he will constantly be running into trouble, wasting his efforts, and acting like a fool. He will not be adjusted to the world as it is: he may, if the lack of adjustment is serious, end up in a mental hospital. (editor's link) ”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), Maps and Territories, p. 31

Life , World , Fools , Effort

“And all that time I couldn’t work. So much of a novelist’s writing, as I have said, takes place in the unconscious: in those depths the last word is written before the first word appears on the paper. We remember details of our story, we do not invent them. War didn’t trouble those deep sea-caves, but not there was something of infinitely greater importance to me than war, than my novel – the end of love. That was being worked out not, like a story: the pointed word that sent her crying, that seemed to have come so spontaneously to the lips, had been sharpened in those underwater caverns. My novel lagged, but my love hurried like inspiration to the end.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Bk. 1, ch. 6
The End of the Affair (1951)

Love , War , Appearance , Time

“The arithmetization of mathematics… which began with Weierstrass… had for its object the separation of purely mathematical concepts, such as number and correspondence and aggregate, from intuitional ideas, which mathematics had acquired from long association with geometry and mechanics.
These latter, in the opinion of the formalists, are so firmly entrenched in mathematical thought that in spite of the most careful circumspection in the choice of words, the meaning concealed behind these words, may influence our reasoning. For the trouble with human words is that they possess content, whereas the purpose of mathematics is to construct pure thought.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

p, 125
Number: The Language of Science (1930)

Mathematics , Idea

“What will we do when they start capturing our people?" Klein asked. "They will, you know, if they haven't by now. Things go wrong." Heydrich's fingers drummed some more. He didn't worry about the laborers who'd expanded this redoubt- they'd all gone straight to the camps after they did their work. But captured fighters were indeed another story. He sighed. "Things go wrong. Ja. If they didn't, Stalin would be lurking somewhere in the Pripet Marshes, trying to keep his partisans fighting against us. We would've worked Churchill to death in a coal mine." He barked laughter. "The British did some of that for us, when they threw the bastard out of office last month. And we'd be getting ready to fight the Amis on their side of the Atlantic. But… things went wrong." "Yes, sir." After a moment, Klein ventured, "Uh, sir- you didn't answer my question." "Oh. Prisoners." Heydrich had to remind himself what his aide was talking about. "I don't know what to do, Klein, except make sure our people all have cyanide pills." "Some won't have the chance to use them. Some won't have the nerve," Klein said. Not many men had the nerve to tell Reinhard Heydrich the unvarnished truth. Heydrich kept Klein around not least because Klein was one of those men. They were useful to have. Hitler would have done better had he seen that. Heydrich recognized the truth when he heard it now; one more thing Hitler'd had trouble with.”

Harry Turtledove (1949) American novelist, short story author, essayist, historian

Source: The Man With the Iron Heart (2008), p. 56-57

Death , Men , People , Truth

“The welfare state may thus face a wave of hostile public opinion and as a result may well pass through a difficult phase, with the need for consolidation and even retrenchment. However, if the reasons suggested here for the change in the climate of opinion are correct, the trouble could be temporary.”

Albert O. Hirschman (1915–2012) German-American economist; member of the French Resistance

"The Welfare State in Trouble: Systemic Crisis or Growing Pains?" The American Economic Review (May 1980).

Hostility , Change

“Meanwhile Medea, though she was singing and dancing with her maids, could think of one thing only. There was no melody, however gay, that did not quickly cease to please. Time and again she faltered and came to a halt. To keep her eyes fixed on her choir was more than she could do. She was for ever turning them aside to search the distant paths, and more than once she well-nigh fainted when she mistook the noise of the wind for the footfall of a passer-by. But it was not so very long before the sight of Jason rewarded her impatient watch. Like Sirius rising from Ocean, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks, he sprang into view, splendid to look at but fraught with trouble for the lovesick girl. Her heart stood still, a mist descended on her eyes, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. She could neither move towards him nor retreat; her feet were rooted to the ground. And now her servants disappeared, and the pair of them stood face to face without a word or sound, like oaks or tall pines that stand in the mountains side by side in silence when the air is still, but when the wind has stirred them chatter without end. So these two, stirred by the breath of Love, were soon to pour out all their tale.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 948–972

Love , Beauty , Search , Girl

“Once more! this is a story of education, not of adventure! It is meant to help young men — or such as have intelligence enough to seek help — but it is not meant to amuse them. What one did — or did not do — with one's education, after getting it, need trouble the inquirer in no way; it is a personal matter only which would confuse him. Perhaps Henry Adams was not worth educating; most keen judges incline to think that barely one man in a hundred owns a mind capable of reacting to any purpose on the forces that surround him, and fully half of these react wrongly.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Men , Education , Way , Intelligence

“People seem to find it hard to believe, but I'm a very serious person. It wasn't luck that I became a ballplayer. I never wanted to be anything else and I never considered anything else and I worked my tail off for it. To say that I don't have any worries or nerves is the opposite of the truth. I worry about not being able to get around on the fast ball any more, I worry about getting hurt and having to quit playing before my time. I worry about the bowling alley I own with Phil Rizzuto making money. I worry about keeping Carm happy so she won't be sorry she married me, about the kids growing up good, and about keeping out of trouble with God. I worry a lot. I'm nobody's mascot, either. Sure, I like to get along with people and I hope I've made friends, but that's different.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

From Yogi: The Autobiography of a Professional Baseball Player; reproduced in "Berra Dispels Li'l Abner Myth."

Money , God , People , Truth

“…we easily fall into the habit of accepting compressed statements which save us from the trouble of thinking. Thus arises what I shall call ‘Potted Thinking’.”

Susan Stebbing (1885–1943) British philosopher

As quoted in Thinking to Some Purpose (1939), p. 63

Thinking

“My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand — Calvary.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 173.

Death , Fear

“Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about, or to make trouble about.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 52).
Variant: Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about, or to make trouble about.

Love

“There is in the handling of these Transatlantic ships a nucleus of trouble for the Navy of Great Britain.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

On American ships sighted sometime between 1801 and 1803, as quoted in The Royal Navy: Its Influence in English History and in the Growth of Empire https://books.google.com/books?id=mlNnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA149 (1914) by John Leyland
1800s

“We live in troubled and dangerous times. But if we make the right choices, America's future will be even better than our past and better than our present. On the other hand, if we make improvident choices, the bright horizon I foresee will never materialize.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2016, Remarks on Donald Trump and the 2016 race

Time , Past , Future

“I’d also like to, I may get in trouble with other members of the committee, just say how insane it is that in the United States of America a civilian can go out and buy a semiautomatic assault rifle like an AR-15.”

Dean Winslow (1953)

November 7, 2017 in his confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services ([Pentagon health nominee: It's 'insane' civilians can purchase assault weapons, Conner, O’Brien, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, Politico, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/07/trump-pentagon-nominee-insane-civilians-can-purchase-assault-weapons-244651]; [Trump DoD nominee: 'Insane' that civilians can buy assault rifles, Zachary, Cohen, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/trump-pentagon-nominee-assault-rifles/index.html]; [Top Trump Pentagon nominee: It's 'insane' that civilians can buy semiautomatic assault rifles, Elizabeth, McLaughlin, November 7, 2017, August 29, 2018, ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-trump-pentagon-nominee-insane-civilians-buy-semi/story?id=50996546]; [w:James Fallows, James, Fallows, November 12, 2017, More on the Military and Civilian History of the AR-15, The Atlantic, August 29, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/11/on-the-military-and-civilian-history-of-the-ar-15/545660/]; [I spoke my mind on guns. Then my Senate confirmation was put on hold, w:Dean Winslow, Dean, Winslow, December 20, 2017, September 6, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-spoke-my-mind-on-guns-it-torpedoed-my-appointment-in-the-trump-administration/2017/12/20/8f708f6c-e50d-11e7-833f-155031558ff4_story.html]).

“Double, treble, quadruple bubble, watch the stock market get into trouble…”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Grim Tuesday (2004), p. 75.

“Gibbons is a man full of pain and violence. On this night, there is a Witch's Sabbath in his heart. Storms are blowing his world to bits and great troubles are pounding him on a reef.”

Ben Hecht (1894–1964) American screenwriter

Angels Over Broadway (1940)
Screenplays

Pain , World , Heart , Night

“I think everybody has the same concerns about helping people when they're having trouble. The question is whether it should be done through coercion, or voluntary means, or local government. And I opt out from the federal government doing it, because that involves central economic planning. So even if we accept the gentleman's moral premise, in a practical way it's a total failure. We'd have been better off taking the amount of money and giving every single family $20,000, and they'd all been better off, than the way we did it. We bought all these trailer homes and they sat out in the open, so the whole thing is insane, it's a total waste. And besides, the reason I don't like these federal government programs, it encourages people like me to build on the beach. I have a house on the beach in the gulf of Mexico. But why don't I assume my own responsibility, why doesn't the market tell me what the insurance rates should be? Because it would be very very high. But, because we want it subsidized, we ask the people of Arizona to subsidize my insurance so I can take greater danger, my house gets blown down, and then the people of Arizona rebuild it?! My statement back during the time of Katrina, which was a rather risky political statement: why do the people of Arizona have to pay for me to take my risk… less people will be exposed to danger if you don't subsidize risky behavior… I think it's a very serious mistake to think that central economic planning and forcibly transferring wealth from people who don't take risks to people who take risks is a proper way to go.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

The Charles Goyette Show, March 30, 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6RMVUOaeA8
2000s, 2006-2009

Money , People , Family , Way

“If I don't have trouble with my stomach I think I can be up among the leading hitters in the league again this year. When I am bothered with my stomach, it leaves me weak. Then instead of just swinging to meet the ball I begin over-swinging and it messes me up. Funny thing, I am bothered more when I go home than when I'm in the States. I'm seriously thinking about spending the next winter in Pittsburgh.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Speaking with reporters at the annual Dapper Dan banquet on February 4, 1962, as quoted in "CHANGE OF PACE: Clemente Holds His Own as a Speaker'")
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1962</big>

Home , Thinking , Winter

“I think that everybody has a backhoe in his or her head, and at moments of stress or trouble you can fire it up and simply push everything into a great big slit-trench in the floor of your conscious mind. Get rid of it. Bury it. Except that that slit-trench goes down into the subconscious, and sometimes, in dreams, the bodies stir and walk.”

Stephen King book Christine

Pt. 1, Ch. 18
Christine (1983)

Dreams , Thinking

“I find that many men and women are troubled by the thought that they are too small and inconsequential in the scheme of things. But that is not our real trouble—we are actually too big and too complex, for God made us in His image and we are too big to be satisfied with what the world offers us! … Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him. God has made him too great, his potential is too mighty.”

Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897–1963) American missionary

Who Put Jesus on the Cross, p. 170

Women , Men , God , World

“It takes as much time and trouble to pull down a falsehood as to build up a truth.”

Peter Mere Latham (1789–1875) English physician and educator

Book II, p. 398.
Collected Works

Truth , Time

“Growing up in Texas gave me many things I'm thankful for. And one of them is an appreciation of the Hispanic culture. In Texas, it's in the air you breathe; Hispanic life, Hispanic culture and Hispanic values are inseparable from the life of our state, and have been for many generations. The history of Mexican-American relations has had its troubled moments, but today our peoples enrich each other in trade and culture and family ties.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Radio address (May 2001)

Life , People , Family , History

“We needed an operating system at Seattle Computer for our own computers and I wanted to do one. So we decided to go for it. I was waiting for Digital [Research] to come out with CP/M-86. I thought they would have it real soon. If they had beat me I wouldn't have taken the trouble. I had always wanted to write my own operating system. I've always hated CP/M and thought I could do it a lot better.”

Tim Paterson (1956) American computer programmer, best known as the original author of MS-DOS

"The Roots of DOS", 1983, 2007-06-18, Hunter, David http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/Softalk/Softalk.html,

Hate , Waiting

“My darling, I will try to guess
What do you want or wish.
I know you prefer to dream
About a Gold Fish.
But I believe that you will find
The famous and gold key.
So, you will open the door.
You saw it in your dreams.
I know: you shall overcome
All troubles in your way.
But do remember every time
About “must” and “may.””

Volodymyr Melnykov (1951) Ukrainian writer, poet, composer

To my friend http://imirelnik.io.ua/s1954083/to_my_friends

Dreams , Way , Fish , Time

“My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history.”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

For Patriotism and Profit (2001)

Children , People , Books , Youth

“We didn't rally them there. We never went looking for trouble. We only rallied on our own street, but we always won there.”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Doc, leader of the Nortons, quoted in Whyte, 1943, p. 51
Street Corner Society, 1943

“It's extraordinary what that song has been used for — I think a lot of people who have gotten into trouble, have attached themselves to that song, and I think a lot of it is Kate's wonderful voice is there, in a sort of reassuring and loving way, and it just makes them think that perhaps there is going to be that type of love out there for them.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

On his duet with Kate on his song "Don’t Give Up", on his album So
The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Love , People , Way , Thinking

“We find that the presidency has become too secretive, too powerful, too trammelled, too ceremonial, too impotent or too complicated, depending on the president under discussion or the critic making the analysis. On one thing all are agreed - there is a danger of an 'imperial' or 'monarchical' presidency. An incumbent in Washington knows he is in trouble on the day that cartoonists begin to represent him as a king.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Secret , Dependency

“The heart of a virtuous person has settled down and he does not rush about at things. A person of little merit is not at peace but walks about making trouble and is in conflict with all.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)

Peace , Heart , Personality

“Though life is made up of mere bubbles,
'T is better than many aver,
For while we've a whole lot of troubles,
The most of them never occur.”

Nixon Waterman (1859–1944) American writer

Shreds and Patches, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens", Benjamin Disraeli, Henrietta Temple (1837), Book 2, chapter 4; "I say the very things that make the greatest Stir / An' the most interestin' things, are things that did n't occur", Sam Walter Foss, Things that did n't occur.

Life