Problem Quotes - Page 39

• Something I tell my students is to read once; then if you still have problems with it, read it a second time. If you still have problems, get drunk and read it a third time... and you might get something out of it.

  Felix Gonzalez-Torres

  Education, Drunk, Might

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• If you were ever dumped after knitting a guy a sweater, consider the possibility that the problem was with the sweater, not you. The recipient probably took one look at the thing, imagined a lifetime of having to pretend to like (and wear) this sweater and others of its like, and saw no choice but to flee into the night

  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  Night, Knitting, Sweaters

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• The main problem with pacifism is that it doesn’t work in all situations. The main problem with pacifists is that they’re convinced it does.

  Burt Prelutsky

  Doe, Pacifism, Situation

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• A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.

  Cesare Pavese

  What Matters, Suffering, World

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.78, Transaction Publishers

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• Remember this. We are always looking for problems to solve, and to solve problems we need to be ready for clues. And you will never be in the receiving frame of mind if you – never – shut - up!

  Chris Murray

  Mind, Receiving, Needs

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• The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.

  Robertson Davies

  People, Physicians, Disease

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

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• The problem is not the harshness of Fate, for anything we want strongly enough we get. The trouble is rather that when we have it we grow sick of it, and then we should never blame Fate, only our own desire.

  Cesare Pavese

  Fate, Sick, Desire

  Diary entry for February 03, 1943. "This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950". Book by Cesare Pavese, 2009.

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• I think the major problem in growing up is to become sophisticated without becoming cynical.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Growing Up, Thinking, Cynical

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “I Will Fear No Evil”, p.358, Penguin

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• I've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. It isn't notions sets people doing the right things--it's feelings. It's the same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man may be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe; but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution, and love something else better than his own ease.

  George Eliot

  Math, Men, Fire

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.131, Wordsworth Editions

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• Philosophers are not honest enough in their work, although they make a lot of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic...; while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of "inspiration" most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Real, Philosophy, Inspiration

  "Beyond Good and Evil". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers, §5., 1886.

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• Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Looks, Want, Wonderful

  Richard P. Feynman (2015). “The Quotable Feynman”, p.76, Princeton University Press

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• With respect to the development of powers devoted to coping with specific scientific and economic problems we may say that the child should be growing in manhood. With respect to sympathetic curiosity, unbiased responsiveness, and openness of mind, we may say that the adult should be growing in childlikeness.

  John Dewey

  Children, Curiosity, Mind

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.41, 谷月社

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• The premium so often put in schools upon external "discipline," and upon marks and rewards, upon promotion and keeping back, are the obverse of the lack of attention given to life situations in which the meaning of facts, ideas, principles, and problems is vitally brought home.

  John Dewey

  Home, School, Ideas

  John Dewey, Jo Ann Boydston, Sidney Hook (2008). “The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education”, p.244, SIU Press

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• Psychoanalysis , which interprets the human being as a socialized being, and the psychic apparatus as essentially developed and determined through the relationship of the individual to society, must consider it a duty to participate in the investigation of sociological problems to the extent the human being or his/her psyche plays any part at all.

  Erich Fromm

  Play, Psychics, Determined

  "Psychoanalyse und Soziologie". "Critical Theory and Society : A Reader" by S. E. Bronner, 1989.

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• Many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of 'unadjusted' individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself.

  Erich Fromm

  Ideas, Numbers, Culture

  Erich Fromm (2013). “The Sane Society”, p.12, Open Road Media

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• Whenever any black man in america shows signs of an uncompromising attitude, against the injustices that he experiences daily, and shows no tendency whatsoever to compromise with it, then the American press [characterizes him] as a radical, as an extremist someone who's irresponsible, or as a rabble rouser or someone who doesn't rationalize in dealing with the problem.

  Malcolm X

  Attitude, Men, America

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• The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige, and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.

  Malcolm X

  Hurt, Thinking, Differences

  "Malcolm X Speaks". Book by George Breitman, p. 21, 1965.

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• In a large congregation, while there is a wide diversification of interest, it is also true that there are only a few basic human problems. It must also be taken into consideration that people are people regardless of who they are or what their backgrounds may be. There are certain deep universal appeals to human interest and to these human nature always responds.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Taken, People, May

  Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (2007). “A Guide to Confident Living”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• Wikipedia was offline after an overheating problem at one of its data centers. It was pretty bad. For a while there, people had nowhere to go for phony, inaccurate information.

  Jay Leno

  Data, People, Wikipedia

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• Humor gives presidents the chance to be seen as warm, relaxed persons. Humor reaches out and puts its arm around the listener and says, 'I am one of you, I understand,' and implicitly it promises, 'I will do something about your problems.'

  Robert Orben

  Giving, Promise, President

  "Americans laugh at their presidents -- not with them". William Lowther, The Toronto Star, September 21, 1986.

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• With so much evidence of depleting natural resources, toxic waste, climate change, irreparable harm to our food chain and rapidly increasing instances of natural disasters, why do we keep perpetuating the problem? Why do we continue marching at the same alarming beat?

  Yehuda Berg

  Irreparable Harm, Toxic Waste, Climate

  "What the @#$% is Going On?" by Yehuda Berg, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 10, 2010.

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• Given that we cannot know all the elements in a problem, we never can solve it.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Elements, Given, Solve

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p.282, 1982.

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• It wasn't that Microsoft was so brilliant or clever in copying the Mac, it's that the Mac was a sitting duck for 10 years. That's Apple's problem: Their differentiation evaporated.

  Steve Jobs

  Clever, Years, Ducks

  "Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company". Book by Owen W. Linzmayer, 2004.

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• The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Philosophy, Prejudice, Common

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Mind, World, Economic

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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