Difficulty Quotes - Page 38

• A peculiarity of the higher arithmetic is the great difficulty which has often been experienced in proving simple general theorems which had been suggested quite naturally by numerical evidence.

  Harold Davenport

  Simple, Mathematics, Arithmetic

  Harold Davenport (1970). “The higher arithmetic: an introduction to the theory of numbers”

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• The best therapy for emotional blocks to math is the realization that the human race took centuries or millennia to see through the mist of difficulties and paradoxes which instructors now invite us to solve in a few minutes.

  Lancelot Hogben

  Block, Math, Emotional

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• Among the minor, yet striking characteristics of mathematics, may be mentioned the fleshless and skeletal build of its propositions; the peculiar difficulty, complication, and stress of its reasonings; the perfect exactitude of its results; their broad universality; their practical infallibility.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Stress, Math, Perfect

  Charles Sanders Peirce (1931). “Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce”

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• Can the difficulty of an exam be measured by how many bits of information a student would need to pass it? This may not be so absurd in the encyclopedic subjects but in mathematics it doesn't make any sense since things follow from each other and, in principle, whoever knows the bases knows everything. All of the results of a mathematical theorem are in the axioms of mathematics in embryonic form, aren't they?

  Alfred Renyi

  Information, Principles, Needs

  Alfréd Rényi (1984). “A diary on information theory”

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• I soon found an opportunity to be introduced to a famous professor Johann Bernoulli. ... True, he was very busy and so refused flatly to give me private lessons; but he gave me much more valuable advice to start reading more difficult mathematical books on my own and to study them as diligently as I could; if I came across some obstacle or difficulty, I was given permission to visit him freely every Sunday afternoon and he kindly explained to me everything I could not understand.

  Leonhard Euler

  Education, Book, Reading

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• Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks... Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can.

  Silvanus P. Thompson

  Education, Stupid, Math

  Silvanus P. Thompson (1914). “Calculus Made Easy: Differential Calculus and the Integral Calculus”

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• Clearly Democrats are not united in what is the critique of what we're doing there and what is the answer to what we do next. The difficulty of coming to a unified position is that for a lot of people who voted for it, they have to decide whether they can admit that they were misled.

  Steve Elmendorf

  Lying, People, Deceit

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• Taking things lightly must lead to big difficulties.

  Laozi

  Taoism, Bigs

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• The sage regards things as difficult, and thereby avoids difficulty.

  Laozi

  Taoism, Sage, Difficult

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• I became obsessed with making more and more tiny things. I think I was trying to find a way of compensating for my embarrassment at having learning difficulties: people had made me feel small so I wanted to show them how significant 'small' could be.

  Willard Wigan

  Thinking, People, Trying

  "The Tiny World of Willard Wigan, Nano Sculptor". Interview with Benjamin Secher, www.telegraph.co.uk. July 07, 2007.

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• The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.

  Aldrich Ames

  Agency, Tasks, Unions

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• Constantly seek difficulties. You shouldn't be afraid to fail; rather you should fail continually, so that you can win in the end. Without difficulties, we cannot grow.

  Michio Kushi

  Winning, Failing, Ends

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• Men don't have as many difficulties and are more supported to combine the different aspects of their life.

  Emma Bonino

  Men, Different, Aspect

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• It is a high patriotic duty that we support and sustain the men who have been placed in position of difficulty, burden, responsibility, and even danger as the result of our suffrages.

  Bainbridge Colby

  Patriotic, Responsibility, Men

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• Nothing influences our ability to cope with the difficulties of our existence so much as the context in which we view them; the more contexts we can choose between, the less do the difficulties appear to be inevitable and insurmountable.

  Theodore Zeldin

  Views, Influence, Existence

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• There is a tendency for humans to consciously see what they wish to see. They literally have difficulty seeing things with negative connotations while seeing with increasing ease items that are positive. For example, words that evoke anxiety, either because of an individuals personal history or because of experimental manipulation, require greater illumination before first being perceived.

  Lionel Tiger

  Illumination, Anxiety, Wish

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• To make a resolution and act accordingly is to live with hope. There may be difficulties and hardships, but not disappointment or despair if you follow the path steadily. Do not hurry. This is a fundamental rule. If you hurry and collapse or tumble down, nothing is achieved. DO not rest in your efforts; this is another fundamental rule. Without stopping, without haste, carefully taking a step at a time forward will surely get you there.

  Shinichi Suzuki

  Disappointment, Effort, Despair

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• It seems a universal rule in this world that people will always look for victims and scapegoats, does it not? Especially at times of difficulty and tension.

  C.J. Sansom

  Life, People, Doe

  C. J. Sansom (2004). “Dissolution: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery”, p.202, Penguin

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• Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities.

  Richard Louv

  Emotional, Community, Attention

  Richard Louv (2008). “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder”, p.36, Algonquin Books

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• How can I progress on the Way thanks to every day difficulties.

  Arnaud Desjardins

  Progress, Way, Thanks

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• We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.

  Elizabeth Ann Seton

  Giving, Grace, Able

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• By the time the average person finishes college, he or she will have taken over 2,600 tests, quizzes, and exams. The right answer approach becomes deeply ingrained in our thinking. This may be fine for some mathematical problems where there is in fact only one right answer. The difficulty is that most of life isn’t this way. Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers- all depending on what you’re looking for. But if you think there is only one right answer, then you’ll stop looking as soon as you find one.

  Roger von Oech

  Life, Taken, College

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• I think the biggest single thing that causes difficulty in the business world is the short-term view. We become obsessed with it. But it forces bad decisions.

  James Sinegal

  Business, Thinking, Views

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• Do not let your difficulties fill you with anxiety, after all it is only in the darkest nights that stars shine more brightly.

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Stars, Night, Shining

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• I think baseball is a great support to people who have emotional voids, gaps, emotional difficulties. That is to say: all of us. Those parts of us that don’t function well. Those parts of us that are sad or depressed—not every day. They can really use baseball. It isn't just the child in a wheelchair or the shut-in senior citizen listening to the radio that needs the game. There’s part of us, part of everybody who’s a baseball fan, who needs the game at that level.

  Thomas Boswell

  Senior, Baseball, Children

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