Troublesome Quotes
More Troublesome Quotes
These somewhat troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe.
— 1896 Speech in the House of Commons,16 Jan. The Times reported the speech under the heading of 'Splendid Isolation', 22 Jan.
Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farmyard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves, and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.
George Bernard Shaw— 1908 Getting Married, preface,'The Personal Sentimental Basis of Monogamy'.
"It is a troublesome thing this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended."
anne brontë— Gilbert to Jack Halford (Ch. L : Doubts and Disappointments)
Graphology is another in a long list of quack substitutes for hard work. It is appealing to those who are impatient with such troublesome matters as research, evidence analysis, reasoning, logic, and hypothesis testing.
robert todd carroll— "Graphology", The Skeptic's Dictionary
Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot. Though it causes me frequent pain, I find it very easy to place myself in the shoes of almost any boy, and can conjure my own youth with an ease that is troublesome.
Dave Eggers— Ch. 10, p. 110
Among minor alterations, I may mention the substitution for the name political economy of the single convenient term economics. I cannot help thinking that it would be well to discard, as quickly as possible, the old troublesome double-worded name of our science.
william stanley jevons— Preface To The Second Edition, p. 8
Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
jawaharlal nehru— The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940 (1942), p. 94
An Ambitious woman shewes her selfe to bee a troublesome disturber of the world, powerfull to make smale things great, and great monstrous
thomas overbury— The Just Downfall of Ambition, Adultery and Murder.
With joint-stock corporations, investors can place bets on the success of many different companies, without having to play a central management role in any one of them. This allows investors to diversify their financial holdings. It also allows them to capture profits on their investments, without having to get involved in the dirty, troublesome business of actually running a company.
jim stanford— Part 2, Chapter 7, Companies, Owners, and Profit, p. 91
Real Freedom is to not feel limited when wearing this Zen robe, this troublesome formal robe. Similarly, in our busy life we should wear this civilization without being bothered by it, without ignoring it, without being caught by it.
shunryu suzuki— Not Always So (page 95)
I am in great straits for funds. I am happy about it. The Lord may take away all our troublesome people through it and give us true-hearted ones instead.
james hudson taylor— (A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six: Assault on the Nine. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1988, 296.)
We are in a troublesome period, and some "nonsense" as you term it — but this is a great nation with a high purpose, and we shall come to our senses and resume our course.
harry s. truman— On problems during the Vietnam War, in a letter to Charles Kennedy (18 March 1970)
Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.
george eliot— "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" Ch. 4
It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
Plutarch— Of Hearing, 6.
As to the American [Civil] War it has manifestly ceased to have any attainable object as far as the Northerns are concerned, except to get rid of some more thousand troublesome Irish and Germans. It must be owned, however, that the Anglo-Saxon race on both sides have shown courage and endurance highly honourable to their stock.
temple, henry, 3rd viscount palmerston— Letter to George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon (20 October 1862), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (London: Constable, 1970), p. 559.
In political matters it is very hard for a man in office to be purer than his neighbours, and, when he is so, he becomes troublesome.
Anthony Trollope— Ch. 44 (Phineas Redux (1874))
His [Turgot's] first important literary and scholastic effort was a treatise On the Existence of God . Few fragments of it remain, but we are helped to understand him when we learn that he asserted, and to the end of his life maintained, his belief in an Almighty Creator and Upholder of the Universe. It did, indeed, at a later period suit the purposes of his enemies, exasperated by his tolerant spirit and his reforming plans, to proclaim him an atheist; but that sort of charge has been the commonest of missiles against troublesome thinkers in all times.
turgot, anne robert jacques, baron de laune— White, ibid., Seven Great Statesmen...
His [Turgot's] first important literary and scholastic effort was a treatise On the Existence of God. Few fragments of it remain, but we are helped to understand him when we learn that he asserted, and to the end of his life maintained, his belief in an Almighty Creator and Upholder of the Universe. It did, indeed, at a later period suit the purposes of his enemies, exasperated by his tolerant spirit and his reforming plans, to proclaim him an atheist; but that sort of charge has been the commonest of missiles against troublesome thinkers in all times.
Andrew Dickson White— Note: only three fragments of this treatise remain, per Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (baron de l'Aulne), The life and writings of Turgot:Comptroller-General of France, 1774-6 W. Walker Stephens, editor, Longman, Green and Co. 1895 p.7p.167-168
Aristotle had considered the question of whether space is infinite and gave six nonmathematical arguments to prove that it is finite; he foresaw that this question would be troublesome.
— Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 1972
With joint-stock corporations, investors can place bets on the success of many different companies, without having to play a central management role in any one of them. This allows investors to diversify their financial holdings. It also allows them to capture profits on their investments , without having to get involved in the dirty, troublesome business of actually running a company.
— Part 2, Chapter 7, Companies, Owners, and Profit, p. 91
An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it. Where an information retrieval system tends not to be used, a more capable information retrieval system may tend to be used even less.
— Calvin Mooers (1959) Mooers' law: or, why some retrieval systems are used and others are not. p. 138
In these troublesome days when the great Mother Empire stands splendidly isolated in Europe.
— Hon. George Eulas Foster, speech in the Canadian House of Commons (Jan. 16, 1896).
How troublesome is day! It calls us from our sleep away; It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake, And sends us forth to keep or break Our promises to pay. How troublesome is day!
thomas love peacock— Thomas Love Peacock, Fly-by-Night, Paper Money lyrics.
Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.
— Jawaharlal Nehru The Unity of India : Collected Writings, 1937-1940, (1942), p. 94
Nuclear weapon: an agency reserved for use by the most civilized nations for the settlement of disputes that might become troublesome if left unadjusted. Unfortunately, too many formerly uncivilized nations are becoming civilized.
— Leonard Rossiter in the Devil's Bedside Book[ ]
If you'd lose a troublesome visitor, lend him money.
Benjamin Franklin— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack
The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.
william penn— Some Fruits of Solitude, pg. 147
