Difficulties

Difficulties are problems which most be overcome on the path to progress.

Sourced

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 194.

• Die grössten Schwierigkeiten liegen da, wo wir sie nicht suchen.
  • The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa, p. 236.

• Nil agit exemplum, litem quod lite resolvit.
  • The illustration which solves one difficulty by raising another, settles nothing.
  • Horace, Satires, II. 3. 103.

• Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
  • Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, Chapter XIII.

• Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
  • Matthew, XXIII. 24.

• So he with difficulty and labor hard
  Mov'd on, with difficulty and labor he.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 1,021.

• Ardua molimur; sed nulla nisi ardua virtus.
  • I attempt a difficult work; but there is no excellence without difficulty.
  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, II. 537.

• Men might as well have hunted an hare with a tabre.
  • Richard the Redeles (1399).

• It is as hard to come as for a camel
  To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act V, scene 5, line 16.

• Nil tam difficile quin quærendo investigari possiet.
  • Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking.
  • Terence, Heauton timoroumenos, IV, 2, 8. Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648), No. 1009, Seek and Find.

• Nulla est tam facilis res, quin difficilis siet,
  Quum invitus facias.
  • There is nothing so easy in itself but grows difficult when it is performed against one's will.
  • Terence, Heauton timoroumenos, IV, 6, 1.

• There is such a choice of difficulties, that I own myself at a loss how to determine.
  • James Wolfe, dispatch to Pitt (Sept. 2, 1759).

Unsourced

• Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence—as a compliment from God.
  • Henry Ward Beecher

• Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a paternal guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
  • Edmund Burke

• There is no merit where there is no trial; and, till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, faith for falsehood.
  • Aaron Hill

• Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body.
  • Seneca

• It is difficulties which give birth to miracles.
  • Rev. Dr. Sharpe

• What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a mere stimulus to men.
  • Samuel Warren

• There are few difficulties that hold out against real attacks; they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance.
  • Anonymous

• Within every difficulty lies opportunity.
  • Anonymous