Quotes About Challenges

It is easy to propose impossible remedies. The

These are weighty topics, and the brief fables that address them do not claim to solve the problems that they embody, but then neither do they simply brush such problems aside, pretending that they do not exist.

The plain unwelcome fact is that sometimes life stymies you.

Life was good back then, in the crappy, oppressive way life is good for fourteen year olds, which is to say, it completely sucked but seems pretty good in the obscuring glare of nostalgia.

since I got into politics, I still think I have the best job in the world (some days) and why, despite the rise of Trump, I'm still (kind of) optimistic about our future (most of the time [albeit certainly less than I was a few months ago]). —Al Franken Washington

the simplicity of many of Bush's pronouncements is often misinterpreted as evidence that he has penetrated to the core of a complex issue, when in fact exactly the opposite is true: They often mark his refusal even to consider complexity. And that's particularly troubling in a world where the challenges America faces are often quite complex and require rigorous, sustained, disciplined analysis.

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things.

Politics is so difficult, it's generally only people who aren't quite up to the task who feel convinced they are.

Good listeners are no less rare or important than good communicators. Here, too, an unusual degree of confidence is the key—a capacity not to be thrown off course by, or buckle under the weight of, information that may deeply challenge certain settled assumptions. Good listeners are unfussy about the chaos which others may for a time create in their minds; they've been there before and know that everything can eventually be set back in its place. The

Our best chance of contentment lies in taking up the wisdom offered to us in coded form through our coughs, allergies, social gaffes, and emotional betrayals, and avoid the ingratitude of those who blame the peas, the bores, the time, and the weather.

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness...

A well-loved child is set a challenging precedent. In its very nature, parental love works to conceal the effort which went into generating it. It shields the recipient from the donor's complexity and sadness - and from an awareness of how many other interests, friends and concerns the parent has sacrificed in the name of love.

We appreciate beauty more when we are aware of life's troubles. — 8. Henri Fantin-Latour, Chrysanthemums, 1871

Romantic idea of love: he has found the right person; he has opened his heart to her; and he has been accepted. But he is, of course, nowhere yet. He and Kirsten will marry, they will suffer, they will frequently worry about money, they will have a girl first, then a boy, one of them will have an affair, there will be passages of boredom, they'll sometimes want to murder one another and on a few occasions to kill themselves. This will be the real love story.

The modern expectation is that there will be equality in all things in the couple—which means, at heart, an equality of suffering.

We seem to know far too much about how love starts, and recklessly little about how it might continue.

Living is something of an emergency anyway, but our struggles must usually be strenuously concealed. Our anxieties churn away within us, yet on the outside we must smile and deliver upbeat answers to enquiries about how we're doing.

The rich believe that their money will insulate them from setbacks and frustrations, and that's one of the absurdist expectations of all.

The moral? To recognize that our best chance of contentment lies in taking up the wisdom offered to us in coded form through our coughs, allergies, social gaffes, and emotional betrayals, and to avoid the ingratitude of those who blame the peas, the bores, the time, and the weather.

Marriage: a deeply peculiar and ultimately unkind thing to inflict on anyone one claims to care for.

We end up believing that our struggles are indications of having made some unusual and fundamental error, rather than evidence that our marriages are essentially going entirely according to plan.

We cease to appreciate things when we believe that life should be perfect and we can eradicate all known problems.

Everyone is extremely hard and troubled to be around. Everyone has something substantially wrong with them. Everyone is extremely hard to live with. 

Knowing that something difficult is being attempted doesn't rob the wise of ambition, but it makes them more steadfast, calmer and less prone to panic about the problems that will invariably come their way. The wise rarely expect anything to be wholly easy or to go entirely well.