Trouble Quotes - Page 40

• It isn't money itself that causes the trouble, but the use of money as votive offering and pagan ornament.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Offering, Ornaments, Use

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion”

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• When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?No, rather smile away despair

  John Clare

  Despair, Needs, Her Smile

  John Clare (2003). “John Clare: Poems of the Middle Period, 1822-1837”, p.37, Oxford University Press

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• One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.

  Rex Stout

  Years, Numbers, President

  "Rex Stout, 85, Gives Clues on Good Writing". Israel Shenker interview, December 1, 1971.

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• Conventions are convenient. It is inconvenient to say people are dead when they are alive, or alive when they have been buried, or that the world is crumbling when it is, as everyone can see, there as usual. If all A that does not fit B is ipso facto disqualified, we have to tailor A to shape and size to avoid serious trouble, and not all are equally gifted in this art.

  R. D. Laing

  Art, People, Usual

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• The male dares to be different to the degree that he accepts his passivity and his desire to be female, his fagginess. The farthest out male is the dragqueen, but he, although different from most men, is exactly like all other dragqueens; like the functionalist, he has an identity - a female; he tries to define all his troubles away - but still no individuality. Not completely convinced that he's a woman, highly insecure about being sufficiently female, he conforms compulsively to the man-made feminine stereotype, ending up as nothing but a bundle of stilted mannerisms.

  Valerie Solanas

  Insecure, Men, Individuality

  Valerie Solanas (1971). “SCUM manifesto”

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• Keep your head down, avoid all the distractions of being a writer today—all the shifts in the business, all the drama, all the debating about where publishing is going—and write the best story that you can. It sounds a bit glib, but I think this is advice a lot of people are having trouble following right now. It is so hard to focus. But that is the single key to success.

  Jeff Abbott

  Drama, Writing, Thinking

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• In the products of the culture industry human beings get into trouble only so that they can be rescued unharmed, usually by representatives of a benevolent collective; and then, in illusory harmony, they are reconciled with the general interest whose demands they had initially experienced as irreconcilable with their own.

  Theodor Adorno

  Culture, Demand, Harmony

  "Culture Industry Reconsidered". Book by Theodor Adorno, 1963.

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• If we choose a weak and foolish speculation as a primary textbook illustration (falsely assuming that the tale possesses a weight of history and a sanction of evidence), then we are in for trouble - as critics properly nail the particular weakness, and then assume that the whole theory must be in danger if supporters choose such a fatuous case as a primary illustration.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Illustration, Weakness, Nails

  Stephen Jay Gould (1999). “Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History”, Three Rivers Press (CA)

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• I could never figure out or probably did not take the trouble to figure out what the great philosophical problems are about. The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive.

  Eric Hoffer

  Philosophical, Numbers, People

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• In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.

  William James

  Believe, Heart, Cutting

  Letter to John Jay Chapman, April 5, 1897.

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• It is often said that in prosperity we have many friends, but that we are usually neglected when things go badly. I disagree. Not only do malicious people flock about us in order to witness our ruin, but other unfortunates as well, who have been kept away by our happiness, and now feel close to us on account of our troubles.

  Andre Maurois

  Order, People, Ruins

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

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• When you get into trouble 5,000 miles from home, you've got to have been looking for it.

  Will Rogers

  Home, Miles, Has Beens

  Will Rogers, Bryan B. Sterling (1995). “Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (writers, Politicians, Comedians, Browsers ...)”, M Evans & Company

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• I have made myself two or three caps to wear of evenings since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to hair-dressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well enough to want no papering.

  Jane Austen

  Home, Hair, Sight

  Jane Austen, Deirdre Le Faye (2011). “Jane Austen's Letters”, p.25, Oxford University Press

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• We all have the dark, ignorant shadow inside us. I have worked endlessly to reveal it and heal it in me, but of course there's some primitive weird stuff in me. The Tea Party is about exhorting white supremacy, though, so I've had a tiny bit of trouble experiencing sympathy.

  Anne Lamott

  Party, Dark, White

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• I said to Mr. Pavarotti once ... a marvelous man and a great artist ... I said to him ... "Maestro, I'm having trouble closing out a note so that it's almost as thin as a butter knife ... finish it out quietly like that." I said, "I have trouble doing that. What do you think I should do?" He said, "Justa close up your mouth." That's all he said, and I fell on the floor. I thought he was gonna give me a dissertation.

  Frank Sinatra

  Artist, Men, Thinking

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• There is again a living prophet on the earth speaking in the name of the Lord. And how we need such guidance! Our times are turbulent and difficult. We see wars internationally and distress domestically. Neighbors all around us face personal heartaches and family sorrows. Legions know fear and troubles of a hundred kinds.

  Jeffrey R. Holland

  War, Names, Heartache

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• "Nuclear" is nothing but trouble. Do you say "new-clear" or do you say "nuke-you-ler"? Whoever invented that word had obviously never studied the human mouth. We don't have enough muscles in our face to make that group of letters come out smoothly. The word is missing a middle syllable, for cryin' out loud.

  Paul Feig

  Missing, Nukes, Faces

  "Test Marketing a New Term..." by Paul Feig, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 25, 2005.

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• This country needs room to grow and expand. In all my own newspapers I read frightful tales of the shameful atrocities being perpetrated on our Democratic minorities in Maine and Vermont. My patience is almost at an end, and if provoked much further I will place both countries under American protection, even if I have to send in my tourists to start trouble so I'll have to send in a force to restore order.

  Gracie Allen

  Country, Order, Maine

  "How to Become President". Book by Gracie Allen, 1940.

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• The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

  Arundhati Roy

  War, Home, Sight

  Arundhati Roy (2001). “Power Politics”, South End Pr

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• But mad people never die. That's a well-known fact. They've nothing to trouble them, and they live for ever.

  Anthony Trollope

  People, Mad, Facts

  Anthony Trollope (185?). “Phineas Redux”, p.281

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• While politicians, clergy, creators of advertisements, and other worthies assert stoutly that the family is the foundation of society, the nuclear family, as an institution, is currently in grave trouble.

  Jane Jacobs

  Foundation, Nuclear Families, Politician

  Jane Jacobs (2007). “Dark Age Ahead”, p.29, Vintage

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• What [Tulio Serafin] said that impressed me was: "When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that." If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know.

  Maria Callas

  Soul, Mind, Ears

  "Maria Callas: The Callas Conversations" by Maria Callas. an Interview in Paris with Lord Harewood for the BBC (April 1968). EMI Classics DVD, 2004.

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• If you bail out every investment bank that gets in trouble, that's not capitalism, that's socialism for the rich

  Jim Rogers

  Bail, Socialism, Rich

  "Jim Rogers: 'Abolish the Fed'". www.cnbc.com. March 12, 2008.

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• I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into trouble.

  Larry Wall

  Names, Want

  Usenet article <11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, 1991.

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• The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion.

  Rick Santorum

  Pregnancy, America, People

  "Rick Santorum, GOP presidential hopeful, blames Social Security problems on abortion" by Aliah Shahid, www.nydailynews.com. March 30, 2011.

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