Problematic Quotes

1. "I would like to, especially in film, play against type and do some heavier stuff. I'm intrigued by projects that deal with problematic people and things."
Author: Aaron Tveit

2. "Some argue that recognition of the genocide has become even more problematic now, when the world is at war with terrorism and the United States cannot afford to offend the sensibility of our Turkish ally."
Author: Adam Schiff

3. "At one time, the treatment for a certain kind of psychosis had been to push an ice pick up through the orbit of the eye, into the frontal lobe; the ice pick was then stirred around until it reduced the problematic brain tissue to non-functioning porridge."
Author: Alastair Reynolds

4. "What I know most is that the difference between us is what makes us interesting and attractive and problematic and exciting and vital to each other. Give me difference over indifference any day."
Author: Ali Smith

5. "If life is an evolving process, then consistent change is the only resolving mechanism to problematic cases"
Author: Anuj Somany

6. "We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic."
Author: Bell Hooks

7. "We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one needed a bishop or his subordinate to serve the meal. This was to become especially problematic when the church began to suggest that grace was primarily, if not exclusively, available through the hands of the priest and by means of the sacrament. One wonders what Jesus, dining with sinners and tax collectors and then eating his modified Passover meal with disciples whom he knew were going to deny, desert, and betray him, would say about all this. There needs to be a balance between proper teaching so the sacrament is partaken of in a worthy manner and overly zealous policing of the table or clerical control of it."
Author: Ben Witherington III

8. "Even in today's opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic."
Author: Bobby Short

9. "No killing," Jordan said. "We're trying to make you feel peaceful, so you don't go up in flames. Blood, killing, war, those are all non-peaceful things. Isn't there anything else you like? Rainforests? Chirping birds?""Weapons," said Jace. "I like weapons.""I'm starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here."Jace leaned forward, his palms flat on the ground. "I'm a warrior," he said. "I was brought up as a warrior. I didn't have toys, I had weapons. I slept with a wooden sword until I was five. My first books were medieval demonologies with illuminated pages. The first songs I learned were chants to banish demons. I know what brings me peace, and it isn't sandy beaches or chirping birds in rainforests. I want a weapon in my hand and a strategy to win."Jordan looked at him levelly. "So you're saying that what brings you peace... is war.""Now you get it."
Author: Cassandra Clare

10. "She needs a new journal. The one she has is problematic. To get to the present, she needs to page through the past, and when she does, she remembers things, and her new journal entries become, for the most part, reactions to the days she regrets, wants to correct, rewrite."
Author: Dave Eggers

11. "But, in fact, materialism is among the most problematic of philosophical standpoints, the most impoverished in its explanatory range, and among the most willful and (for want of a better word) magical in its logic, even if it has been in fashion for a couple of centuries or more."
Author: David Bentley Hart

12. "What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone."
Author: Eckhart Tolle

13. "Cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music."
Author: Edith Wharton

14. "Adult stem cells are also problematic, as they are difficult to identify, purify and grow, and simply may not exist for certain diseased tissues that need to be replaced."
Author: Eliot Engel

15. "If you say city to people, people have no problem thinking of the city as rife with problematic, screwed-up people, but if you say suburbs - and I'm not the first person to say this, it's been said over and over again in literature - there's a sense of normalcy."
Author: Eric Bogosian

16. "Generally, all my life, I have had strong friction with life - I was a problematic soldier, I was kicked out of the army, I was in fights. There was something about writing that was a way of experimenting with this emotion."
Author: Etgar Keret

17. "L'ateismo, per me, non è un risultato, e tanto meno un avvenimento - come tale non lo conosco: io lo intendo per istinto. Sono troppo curioso, troppo problematico, troppo tracotante, perché possa piacermi una risposta grossolana. Dio è una risposta grossolana, un'indelicatezza verso noi pensatori - in fondo è solo un grossolano divieto che ci viene fatto: non dovete pensare!"
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche

18. "The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic."
Author: George Eliot

19. "Within Hobbes' depiction of the motives for conflict. . . there is a problematic in which the grave threat that human beings pose to other human beings is not constituted simply by the structures of human passions, interests, and desires, nor by the addition of a self-deceptive and egotistical desire for recognition and proof of one's perhaps illusory power. In this moment, it is the very rationality of other humans, reason in the broad sense, understood as roughly equal to oneself in both capacity and structure, that poses such a threat"
Author: Gregory B. Sadler

20. "Page 142: "When a spouse says to the alcoholic, "you need to go to AA," that is obviously not true. The addict feels no need to do that at all, and isn't. But when she says, "I am moving out and will be open to getting back together when you are getting treatment for your addiction," then all of a sudden the addict feels "I need to get some help or I am going to lose my marriage." The need has been transferred. It is the same with any kind of problematic behavior of a person who is not taking feedback and ownership. The need and drive to do something about it must be transferred to that person, and that is done through having consequences that finally make him feel the pain instead of others. When he feels the pain, he will feel the need to change...A plan that has hope is one that limits your exposure to the foolish person's issues and forces him to feel the consequences of his performance so that he might have hope of waking up and changing."
Author: Henry Cloud

21. "E poi di nuovo, come oggi, può divenirmi problematico il fatto che abbia veramente visto, udito, odorato qualcosa o se invece tutto ciò che credo di percepire altro non sia se non l'immagine della mia vita interiore proiettata fuori di me."
Author: Hermann Hesse

22. "Molecular biology has routinely taken problematic things under its wing without altering core ideas."
Author: Ian Hacking

23. "..why is it that in problematic situations almost everyone resorts to axioms and societal remedies that in actuality almost nobody believes in?...ask yourself, have you ever known anyone whose marriage was saved by a marriage counselor, whose drinking was cured by a psychiatrist, whose son was kept out of reform school by a social worker?"
Author: James Lee Burke

24. "Only a philosopher would consider taking Oedipus as a model for a normal, unproblematic relation between an action and the maxim of the act."
Author: Jerry A. Fodor

25. "He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement."
Author: Joe Hill

26. "Whereas what we need is to fumble around in the darkness, because that's where our lives (not necessarily all of the time, but at least some of the time, and particularly when life gets problematical for us) takes place."
Author: John Cage

27. "I can't relax. I find vacations problematic."
Author: John Oliver

28. "When we lift our forks, we hang our hats somewhere. We set ourselves in one relationship or another to farmed animals, farmworkers, national economies, and global markets. Not making a decision - eating like everyone else - is to make the easiest decision, a decision that is increasingly problematic."
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer

29. "Man is a world-forming being, a being that actively constitutes his own world, but when everything is always already fully coded, the active constituting of the world is made super?uous, and we lose friction in relation to the world.We Romantics need a meaning that we ourselves realize – and the person who is preoccupied with self-realization inevitably has a meaning problem. This is no one collective meaning in life any more, a meaning that it is up to the individual to participate in. Nor is it that easy to find an own meaning in life, either. The meaning that most people embrace is self-realization as such, but it is not obvious what type of self is to be realized, nor whatshould possibly result from it. The person who is certain as regards himself will not ask the question as to who he is. Only a problematic self feels the need for realization."
Author: Lars Fr. H. Svendsen

30. "In politics, the connection between what you pay for and what you actually get is problematic at best...This is another way of asserting that your vote in the marketplace counts for so much more than your vote in the polling booth. Cast your dollars for the washing machine of your choice and that is what you get--nothing more and nothing less. Pull the lever for the politician of your choice and, most of the time (if you're lucky), you will get some of what you do want and much of what you don't. The votes of a special interest lobby may ultimately cancel out yours. As someone much wiser than me once said, "[P]olitics may not be the oldest profession, but the results are often the same.""
Author: Lawrence W. Reed

31. "It's really a lot easier to write about things that are problematic. Who wants to hear how happy you are?"
Author: Lyle Lovett

32. "I am drawn to women who are independent and creative, which is problematic because it's a struggle, a competition of careers. There's jealousy."
Author: Marilyn Manson

33. "Timpul este un "cum" . Cînd ne întrebam ce este timpul, nu trebuie sa ne agatam grabiti de un raspuns ( de genul "asta sau asta este timpul" ), care sa contina mereu un "ce" . Sa nu privim catre raspuns, ci sa repetam întrebarea. Ce s-a întîmplat cu întrebarea ? S-a modificat. întrebarea "Ce este timpul ?" a devenit întrebarea "Cine este timpul ?". Mai exact : sîntem noi însine timpul ? Sau, si mai exact : sînt eu timpul meu ? Cu aceasta m-am apropiat cel mai mult de el si, daca înteleg corect întrebarea, atunci o data cu ea totul devine serios. Prin urmare, asemenea interogare este modul cel mai adecvat de a accede si de a ma raporta la timp, ca la unul ce este "de fiecare data al meu: Dasein-ul este atunci cel problematic."
Author: Martin Heidegger

34. "An author describing the methods of intensive farming, or the excesses of sport hunting, or even the harsher uses of animals in science writes with confidence that most readers will share his sense of concern and indignation. Sounding the call to action--convincing people that change is not only necessary, but actually possible--is more problematic. In protecting animals from cruelty, it is always just one step from the mainstream to the fringe. To condemn the wrong is obvious, to suggest its abolition radical."
Author: Matthew Scully

35. "...But if we are to say anything important, if fiction is to stay relevant and vibrant, then we have to ask the right questions. All art fails if it is asked to be representative—the purpose of fiction is not to replace life anymore than it is meant to support some political movement or ideology. All fiction reinscribes the problematic past in terms of the present, and, if it is significant at all, reckons with it instead of simply making it palatable or pretty. What aesthetic is adequate to the Holocaust, or to the recent tragedy in Haiti? Narrative is not exculpatory—it is in fact about culpability, about recognizing human suffering and responsibility, and so examining what is true in us and about us. If we're to say anything important, we require an art less facile, and editors willing to seek it."
Author: Michael Copperman

36. "Johnny Cash had all of the same talents and problems as Elvis - a poor upbringing in the rural South exposure to gospel music throughout his childhood a penchant for drug abuse...they had the same sort of influencing experiences but Johnny' Cash's problematic relationship was with his father not his mother. If he had had the mommy issues that Elvis had instead of a compelling need to prove himself to his father, he wouldn't have been the badass man in black, the guy in Folsom Prison watching the train roll by. Elvis was a lot of things but even with the karate and the gunplay he was more unstable than badass."
Author: Molly Harper

37. "Problematic within post-Reformation dogmatics. Is faith something I `do' to earn God's favour, and, if not, what role does it play? Once we release Paul's justification-language from the burden of having to describe `how someone becomes a Christian', however, this is simply no longer a problem. There is no danger of imagining that Christian faith is after all a surrogate `work', let alone a substitute form of moral righteousness. Faith is the badge of covenant membership, not something someone `performs' as a kind of initiation test."
Author: N. T. Wright

38. "First, if you love the Kindle and it works for you, it isn't problematic, and you should ignore all my criticisms and read the way you want to read."
Author: Nicholson Baker

39. "Your ego-depletion seems problematically difficult to assuage."
Author: Orson Scott Card

40. "Using MO to link crimes can be problematic."
Author: Pat Brown

41. "The world has a fast-growing problematic disability, which forges bonds in families, causes people to communicate in direct and clear ways, cuts down meaningless social interaction, pushes people to the limit with learning about themselves, whilst making them work together to make a better world. It's called Autism – and I can't see anything wrong with it, can you? Boy I'm glad I also have this disability!"
Author: Patrick Jasper Lee

42. "The standard cosmological theory--an expanding universe--does not really solve the problem of God. It simply makes it more problematical. Once the creator-creation model is discarded as primitive mythology, we still have not touched the ancient conundrum, ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing, and the "axiom" that "Nothing is unstable' rivals in scholastic absurdity anything Aquinas may have said eight hundred years ago and can only be postulated given the reality of something, whereby it becomes a self-evident and unarguable tautology."
Author: R. Joseph Hoffmann

43. "I have really diverse tastes, which can be problematic sometimes, but it's good because it means I'm always listening to as much music as possible. I love listening to music, whatever genre it is."
Author: Richard Fleeshman

44. "Printing mistakes adds value because of the probability calculus, which makes their intrusion into something problematic and almost impossible, even when everything's conceived, precisely, to avoid the intrusion of human error."
Author: Romain Gary

45. "I get quite disappointed that we're still telling stories that I think are problematic in terms of what they're saying about women."
Author: Romola Garai

46. "If the universe was scientific and just left to itself, then we'd have statistical probabilities to rely on. But once people are involved it sometimes becomes much more problematic because they're erratic. People do crazy things that don't make sense."
Author: Sara Sheridan

47. "Often real life is boring and problematic. I love the edited version of it."
Author: Terry Gross

48. "When anxiety becomes problematic, most people try vainly to think their way out of trouble. But worry has its roots in the reptilian brain, minimally responsive to will. As a wise psychoanalyst once remarked of the autonomic nervous system (which carries the outgoing fear messages from the reptilian brain), "It's so far from the head it doesn't even know there is a head." (49)"
Author: Thomas Lewis

49. "Steve [sports psychiatrist] had already taught me to try and stop worrying so much about pleasing everyone. We knew that this was one of my most draining flaws and he again used three groups to clarify my thinking. There would always be some people, Steve said, who would care about me and love me. In contrast there would also be a select group of people who would never warm to me - no matter what I did. And in the middle came the overwhelming mass who were largely indifferent to any of my failures or triumphs. I needed to understand that most people didn't really care what I did or said. All my anguish about how they might perceive me was redundant. Steve helped me realize that I spent too much time trying to please those oblivious people in the middle or, more problematically, the small group who would never change their critical opinion of me. I should concentrate on the people who really did show concern for me."
Author: Victoria Pendleton

50. "Question (The Great Problematic): Will the ultimate liberation of the erotic from its dialectical relationship with Christianity result in(a) The freeing of the erotic spirit so that man- and womankind will make love and not war?or (b) The trivialization of the erotic by its demotion to yet another technique and need-satisfaction of the organism, toward the end that the demoniac spirit of the autonomous self, disappointed in all other sectors of life and in ordinary intercourse with others, is now disappointed even in the erotic, its last and best hope, and so erupts in violence--and in that very violence which is commensurate with the orgastic violence in the best days of the old erotic age--i.e., war?"
Author: Walker Percy

Problematic Quotes Pictures