Difficult

Famous quotes containing the word difficult:

    To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self- congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.
    Clifford Geertz (b. 1926)

    How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.
    Abigail Adams (1744–1818)

    It is difficult to separate the tapestry
    From the room or loom which takes precedence over it.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)