Problem Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.

Agatha Christie

Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get.

Raymond Chandler

You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist.

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

How far we are going to read a poet when we can read about a poet is a problem to lay before biographers.

Hillary and President Obama refused to use the term radical Islamic terrorism. Big problem. Big problem. Hillary wants to release violent criminals and criminal offenders from prison, that's wonderful, enjoy yourselves. I want to work with our police. Our police are so incredible, they're not getting the respect they deserve.

The zero-G part was wonderful and the higher-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!

Stephen Hawking

You have a problem with ISIS. You have a bigger problem with China. And, in my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade, is Mexico.

The problem of aging is the problem of living. There is no simple solution.

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.

The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time. Get into a fist fight, put your mind on the strategy of the fight, and you will not feel the other fellow's punches.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen). Say you want to write a contract speculating on the number of twins to be born in Nebraska in 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The great problem is at length solved! The air, as well as the earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become a common and convenient highway for mankind.

Edgar Allan Poe

The ideal solution of the problem of transportation will be arrived at only when the complete annihilation of distance in the transmission of power in large amounts shall have become a commercial reality. That day we shall invade the domain of the bird. When the vexing problem of aerial navigation, which has defied his attempts for ages, is solved, man will advance with giant strides.

The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty is solved by redemption of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of our political revolution of '76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.

Abraham Lincoln

Unfortunately, I don't think I keep my ego in check very well. I try to remember that my voice is loud, which is an ego problem. But at least I don't suffer from self-deluding identity problem like, say, Carl Sagan does. … With each passing year he grows stiffer because he goes around thinking he's Carl Sagan. Just as Norman Mailer thinks he's Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal thinks he's Gore Vidal. I don't think I'm Ray Bradbury. That's a big distinction. It doesn't matter who you are. You mustn't go around saying who you are, or else you get captured by the mask of false identity. It's the work that identifies you.

Clearly our first problem must be to define the issue, since nothing is more prolific of fruitless controversy than an ambiguous question.

Bertrand Russell

I was the type who looked at discussions of What Is Truth only with a view toward correcting the manuscript. If you were to quote "I am that I am," for example, I thought that the fundamental problem was where to put the comma, inside the quotation marks or outside.

I have never found a problem with people from different religions praying together. What I have found is that people are just hungry for God, and be they Christian or Muslim we invite them to pray with us.

I do believe in simplicity. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem he first frees the equation from all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms.

Henry David Thoreau

Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.

Look at the design of a lot of consumer products — they're really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through.