Trouble

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I wouldn't pass it around. Wouldn't be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble. That's as bas as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I sometimes say to myself: Life is too short to be worth troubling about. Yet if a bore calls on me, prevents me from going out or attending to my affairs, I lose patience and cannot endure it for half an hour. ~~ Marquis de Vauvenargues

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a good many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative. ~~ H. L. Mencken

Life is such a very troublesome matter, when all is said and done, that it's as well even to take its blessings quietly. ~~ Mary Elizabeth Braddon

When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me … At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. ~~ Oscar Wilde

After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual food out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps. ~~ Miss Piggy

As soon as I stepped out of my mother's womb onto dry land, I realized that I had made a mistake -- that I should not have come, but the trouble with children is that they are not returnable. ~~ Quentin Crisp

The trouble with sharing one's bed with cats is that they'd rather sleep on you than beside you. ~~ Pam Brown

The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning, you're on the job. ~~ Lena Horne

Trouble teaches you two things: how many friends you have, and how many people are waiting to catch you bent over. ~~ Unattributed

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously. ~~ H. L. Mencken

People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long. ~~ Bertolt Brecht

It was Einstein who made the real trouble. He announced in 1905 that there was no such thing as absolute rest. After that there never was. ~~ Stephen Leacock

At every party there are two kinds of people -- those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other. ~~ Ann Landers

The trouble with our age is that it is all signpost and no destination. ~~ Louis Kronenberger

The question grows more troubling with each passing year: how much of what yesterday's science fiction regarded as unspeakably dreadful has become today's award-winning research? ~~ Theodore Roszak

It is a painful thing

To look at your own trouble and know

That you yourself and no one else has made it. ~~ Sophocles

The trouble with specialists is that they tend to think in grooves. ~~ Elaine Morgan

The trouble with research is that it tells you what people were thinking about yesterday, not tomorrow. It's like driving a car using a rearview mirror. ~~ Bernard Loomis

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. ~~ Groucho Marx

Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due. ~~ Dean William R. Inge

Stay away from trouble. Presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. ~~ Unattributed

Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine times out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you. ~~ Calvin Coolidge

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right. ~~ Mark Twain

A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles. ~~ Mignon McLaughlin

One-half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough. ~~ Josh Billings

[Sign in a General Motors Lab:] The price of progress is trouble. ~~ Unattributed

A lie is an abomination unto the Lord and a very present help in trouble. ~~ Adlai Stevenson

Don't bore your friends with your troubles; tell them to your enemies -- they'll enjoy hearing about them. ~~ Peter's Almanac

The fools in this world make about as much trouble as the wicked do. ~~ Josh Billings

Other people's troubles are bearable. ~~ Yiddish proverb

A business traveler should bring only what fits in a carry-on bag. Checking your luggage is asking for trouble. ~~ The Accidental Tourist (film, 1988)

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble. ~~ Carl Jung (see Said Who?)

Never worry about anything that is past. Charge it up to experience and forget the trouble. There are always plenty of troubles ahead, so don't turn and look back on any behind you. ~~ Herbert Hoover

I used to have trouble remembering names till I took that Sam Carnegie course. ~~ Jack Taylor

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. ~~ Benjamin Franklin

While my mother believes in the Golden Rule, she also advocates a second maxim, which she terms her Iron Rule: Don't do for others what they wouldn't take the trouble to do for themselves. ~~ Mrs. D. Fulton

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves. ~~ William Penn

I don't ever have any trouble in regulating my own conduct. But to keep other folks' straight is what bothers me. ~~ Josh Billings

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles -- by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it; it's the healthiest thing a body can do. ~~ Mark Twain

The trouble is that the young don't know what to do, and the old can't do what they know. ~~ Unattributed

Nothing lasts forever -- not even your troubles. ~~ Arnold H. Glasow

There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that the has never known trouble. ~~ Sinclair Lewis

Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble. ~~ Dennis Fakes

Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. ~~ Harold Coffin

I am often troubled as I try hard here to create a new sense of common purpose ... that sometimes we forget that we are all in this because we are seeking a good that helps all Americans. ~~ William Jefferson Clinton

If the second and third generations could profit by the experience of the first generation, we would not be having some of the troubles we have today. ~~ Harry S Truman

The trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces surrounded by teeth. ~~ Charles Luckman

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt. ~~ Bertrand Russell

The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass. ~~ Martin Mull

Troubles hurt the most

When they prove self-inflicted. ~~ Sophocles

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. ~~ Willem De Kooning

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it. ~~ Franklin P. Jones

If you want to forget all your troubles, wear tight shoes. ~~ Joe Moore

Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important. ~~ T. S. Eliot

The trouble with mornings is that they come when you're not awake. ~~ Rex Stout

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half. ~~ John Wannamaker

I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them. ~~ Jane Austin

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces. ~~ Maureen Murphy

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again. ~~ George Miller

The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around. ~~ Herb Caen

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up. ~~ Tom Lehrer

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you're still a rat. ~~ Lily Tomlin

We are not troubled by things, but by the opinion which we have of things. ~~ Epictetus

Never complain about your troubles; they are responsible for more than half of your income. ~~ Robert R. Updegraff

If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you. ~~ Calvin Coolidge

I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened. ~~ Sir Winston Churchill

The usual excuse of those who cause others trouble is that they wish them well. ~~ Vauvenargues

The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others, and no one thinks about reforming himself. ~~ Saint Peter of Alcantara

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind. ~~ Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

God writes a lot of comedy … the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. ~~ Garrison Keillor

No evil is without its compensation. The less money, the less trouble; the less favor, the less envy. Even in those cases which put us out of wits, it is not the loss itself, but the estimate of the loss that troubles us. ~~ Seneca

The trouble with loving is that pets don't last long enough and people last too long. ~~ Unattributed

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old. ~~ Ed Howe

Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was time when we were not; this gives us no concern -- why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? ~~ William Hazlitt

Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds -- all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. ~~ Edward Everett Hale

The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles. ~~ Bernard M. Baruch

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds. ~~ Will Durant

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them. ~~ Charles Lamb

The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops. ~~ Robert Helpman

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. ~~ Frank Tyger

1. When in doubt, mumble. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in charge, ponder. When all else fails, read the instructions. ~~ Arthur Bloch

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself. ~~ Thomas Jefferson

While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful. ~~ H. G. Wells

Do not … hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind. ~~ Samuel Johnson

Trouble with the government is they ain't patriotic. ~~ Helldorado film, 1946)

Randolph Churchill went into hospital … to have a lung removed. It was announced that the trouble was not malignant... It was a typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it. ~~ Evelyn Waugh

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. ~~ Mignon McLaughlin

The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there it's there! ~~ Herb Caen

Guidelines for bureaucrats: (1) When in charge ponder. (2) When in trouble delegate. (3) When in doubt mumble. ~~ James H. Boren

To most people nothing is more troublesome than the effort of thinking. ~~ James Bryce

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be. ~~ Paul Valery

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone --
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own. ~~ Adam L. Gordon

He was either a man of about a hundred and fifty who was rather young for his years or a man of about a hundred and ten who had been aged by trouble. ~~ P. G. Wodehouse

I want a house that has got over all its trouble. I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house. ~~ Jerome K. Jerome

There's one thing to be said for inviting trouble: it generally accepts. ~~ Mae Maloo

There is always
A comforting thought
In time of trouble when
It is not our trouble. ~~ Don Marquis

He might have been a fine young man with a bad toothache, with the first even of his life. What ailed him, above all, she felt, was that trouble was new to him. ~~ Henry James

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale. ~~ A. E. Housman

All change in history, all advance, comes from non-conformity. If there had been no troublemakers, no dissenters, we should still be living in caves. ~~ A. J. P. Taylor

Like a bridge over troubled water,

I will ease your mind. ~~ Bridge Over Troubled Water [Song, Paul Simon]

I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I have ever met! ~~ Dwight L. Moody

Don't meet trouble halfway. It is quite capable of making the entire journey. ~~ Bob Edwards

This I know -- if all men should take their trouble to market to barter with their neighbors, not one when he had seen the troubles of other men but would be glad to carry his own home again. ~~ Herodotus

If you're in trouble, you're alone. ~~ Ross Thomas

Lately ... Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute middle of the homemade cherry pie. In our history, the state has failed to respond to the weak... You could be white, male, Presbyterian and heterosexual besides, but if you get fired or if you get sick tomorrow, you might as well be Black, for all the state will want to hear from you. ~~ June Jordan

Godlike objectivity, even if possible, was far too much trouble. ~~ R. A. MacAvoy [Twisting the Rope]

The trouble with letting it all hang out ... was the difficulty of stuffing it all back in. ~~ Eric Wright [A Single Death]