Problems are an inevitable part of life, but how we perceive and tackle them can make all the difference. Throughout history, thinkers, leaders, and creatives have shared powerful insights that shed light on the nature of challenges and the opportunities they present. In this collection of the top 77 iconic problem quotes, you'll find inspiration and wisdom to help you face obstacles with confidence and a fresh perspective. Whether you're seeking motivation or a new way to approach difficulties, these quotes offer timeless guidance for overcoming the struggles we all encounter.
1. “The best way out is always through.” - Robert Frost
2. “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama XIV
3. “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” - Ernest Benn
4. “Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.” - Noam Chomsky
5. “By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.” - Hugh Prather
6. “Every problem comes with a baggage of solutions.” - Santosh Kalwar
7. “The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or by duplication” - Susan Sontag
8. “Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.” - Hugh Miller
9. “We can choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.” - William Arthur Ward
10. “Don't leave life until life leaves you.from the book 'I Know Who You Are!” - Fatima Masood
11. “Sometimes I get so caught up in my own problems that I forget how amazing the world is.” - Wendelin Van Draanen
12. “One foot in front of the other, wasn't that the grownup way of solving problems? Surely he ought to be a grownup at his age.” - Lois McMaster Bujold
13. “Happiness is not the absence of problems; it's the ability to deal with them.” - Steve Maraboli
14. “I finally faced the fact that it isn`t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.” - whitney houston
15. “...you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there ain't nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It's just a aggravation.” - Cormac McCarthy
16. “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” - Haruki Murakami
17. “We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluable problems.” - Lee Iacocca
18. “I don't see much future for the Americans ... it's a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities ... my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance ... everything about the behaviour of American society reveals that it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?” - Adolf Hitler
19. “The Whites have carried to these (colonial) people the worst that they could carry: the plagues of the world: materialism, fanaticism, alcoholism, and syphilis. Moreover, since what these people possessed on their own was superior to anything we could give them, they have remained themselves... The sole result of the activity of the colonizers is: they have everywhere aroused hatred.” - Adolf Hitler
20. “It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.” - Anne Lamott
21. “Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.” - J.I. Packer
22. “Maybe you don't just have one Goliath. Maybe you have his whole family!” - Joyce Meyer
23. “Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink.” - George Jones
24. “Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life. ” - Joan Lowery Nixon
25. “Generally speaking, books don't cause much harm. Except when you read them, that is. Then they cause all kinds of problems.” - Pseudonymous Bosch
26. “Die Judenfrage,' it used to be called, even by Jews. 'The Jewish Question.' I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish 'problem.' Again, the word 'solution' can be as neutral as the words 'question' or 'problem,' but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution.” - Christopher Hitchens
27. “And that is how Goodwin problems were always fixed. Fix them on the surface but don't go to the root, always ignoring the elephant in the room. I think that morning was when I realized I'd grown up with an elephant in every room of my life. It was practically our family pet.” - Cecelia Ahern
28. “If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.” - Robert Fulghum
29. “some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.” - Chuck Palahniuk
30. “My mother used to tell me, “Things always look worse at night.” For the most part, I believe her. But some of the troubles that keep me from sleeping look just as bad in the morning.” - Carolyn Custis James
31. “People like to think the worst. They like to have hushed gossip sessions and point their fingers at someone's problems that are more obvious than their own.” - Marcia Lynn McClure
32. “Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.” - Garth Stein
33. “The huge problems we deal with every day are actually really small. We’re so focused on what bothers usthat we don’t even try to see our lives from a clearer perspective.” - Susane Colasanti
34. “Be confident in your approach to success in having a better future. Take risks, try new things, become diligent, and find new techniques because in the end you will develop a compelling emotional element.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett
35. “There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull: How do you hang onto someone who won't stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won't go?” - Danny De Vito
36. “Talking about a problem sometimes makes it worse.” - Dean Koontz
37. “Did you have a rough month? I did :( but, you know what? There’s no time to dwell on a missed opportunity or worry about what I should’ve done or said, beating myself up & making myself miserable about my mistakes. That doesn’t work. So will take notes from that, put it behind me, move on & finish the year STRONG” - Pablo
38. “Mental acuity of any kind comes from solving problems yourself, not from being told how to solve them.” - Paul Lockhart
39. “There are always answers. We just have to be smart enough.” - John Green
40. “Every solution to every problem is simple. It's the distance between the two where the mystery lies.” - Derek Landy
41. “No one has a problem with the first mile of a journey. Even an infant could do fine for a while. But it isn't the start that matters. It's the finish line.” - Julien Smith
42. “[I] know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind's problems....” - Martin Luther King Jr.
43. “I told her running away from your problems doesn't solve anything. Really it just hurts the people who count on you.” - Kyle Beachy
44. “Why hasn't someone lassoed a few teenagers and had them sit down and write out all the supposed answers they have so we can solve the world's problems already?” - Richelle E. Goodrich
45. “One way to get high blood pressure is to go mountain climbing over molehills.” - Earl Wilson
46. “I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.” - Tom Robbins
47. “Maybe the answer to all of his problems was nothing more than a darkened sky and a glittering city, a lofty perch above the world below. It seemed entirely possible that it was all just a matter of setting and location, and Peter wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.” - Jennifer E. Smith
48. “I doubt if there is any problem in the world today - social, political or economic - that would not find a happy solution if approached in the spirit of the sermon on the mount.” - Harry S. Truman
49. “Well, if it can be thought, it can be done, a problem can be overcome,” - E.A. Bucchianeri
50. “Sometimes problems don’t require a solution to solve them; instead they require maturity to outgrow them.” - Steve Maraboli
51. “When I feel the heat, I see the light.” - Everett Dirksen
52. “But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.” - Romain Rolland
53. “What's your problem?""I don't have problems. I solve them.” - John M. Cusick
54. “We have to remember that not every action taken to solve a problem will be free of unforeseen consequences. No matter how good our intentions.” - Rachel Fischer
55. “Usually, the main problem with life conundrums is that we don't bring to them enough imagination” - Thomas Moore
56. “Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You’ll know that you’re getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done.” - Max Mckeown
57. “Είμαστε εξαιρετικά ανώτεροι και υποχωρητικοί στα προβλήματα όταν δε μας τσούζουν προσωπικά” - Μάρω Βαμβουνάκη
58. “Do you want to make progress? If so, then take each problem not as a challenging rival, but as an encouraging friend of yours, who is helping you to arrive at your ultimate destination.” - Sri Chinmoy
59. “I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems.You ask me what to do about them.It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race.Face that one first.” - Idries Shah
60. “Whenever you don't know someone and you overhear their problems they always sound so trivial.” - Cat Agonis
61. “The art of being wise is the art of knowing that solutions don’t come from individuals, but rather experiences.” - Shannon L. Alder
62. “The moment you tell someone else is the moment you become a whiner and the world’s smallest violin starts to play. The truth is, we all have problems.” - J.A. Redmerski
63. “I’ve got a question for you… Are you the person who you thought you’d be by now? I know I am not. The fact is that life may not be what you thought it would be by now (If It is, I congratulate you & applaud you) You may feel stuck in a job you don’t like, not making enough money, jobless, or maybe you are in a bad relationship/marriage, or unhappy because you are out of shape…but don’t let that get you down.The key is 2 focus on what you have (Health,Fam,friends etc) instead of what you don’t have. And also in the things that you have done (Finished a Race-College/Got that Diploma/Raise a Family etc) Instead of the things you haven’t done. yetIF where you are now, it’s not where you want to be…know that where you’re going is far more important than where you are now or where you’ve been.Forgive yourself, Accept the current situation & MOVE ON, knowing that from now on you will focus your time & energy on the possibilities & opportunities that lie ahead 4 you in the near future.” - Pablo
64. “It would be nice if life worked this way, stripping the dirt from our lives and sending us back out into the world clean. But some dirt is destined to lingered.” - Veronica Roth
65. “There is no problem too large that God can’t handle,” Mamm assured. “Besides, God showed me a wonderful verse from His Word. Romans chapter eight verse twenty-eight: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” - J.E.B. Spredemann
66. “The smallest issues can become the most important things in life and reality slips away.” - David Millar
67. “...one can't avoid the storms and calamities of life, but one can at least find the right partner to face them with.” - Lisa Kleypas
68. “I had to learn what my grandfather and mother knew about some of this journey’s problems. My job was to sit back and let the Lord work it out according to His will. That’s the best way —always!” - Deborah L. Parker
69. “Tak ada masalah yang terlalu berat, atau yang terlalu ringan. Kalau terlalu berat, tentu kita tak akan bisa menghadapinya, dan bila terlalu ringan, kita takut cenderung meremehkannya” - Yudhi Herwibowo
70. “The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.” - Tennessee Williams
71. “I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, and fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural . . to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.” - Elbert Hubbard
72. “For every evil under the sun,There is a remedy, or there is none.If there be one, try and find it;If there be none, never mind it.” - Mother Goose Rhymes
73. “We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.” - Matthieu Ricard
74. “A hundred pounds! He couldn't remember ever having seen a hundred pounds, all at one time. He found himself envying his father, who had nothing to worry about except the future of mankind.” - John Mortimer
75. “(Popular singer Eddie Fisher, appearing on This is Show Business, told Kaufman that women refused to date him because he looked so young.) Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars up to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the construction of the Mount Palomar telescope, an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope - Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn't be able to detect my interest in your problem.” - George S. Kaufman
76. “Our problems may tower over us, but God towers over our problems.” - Dillon Burroughs
77. “We may not understand why certain things occur in our lives, but we understand who to run to when they do.” - Dillon Burroughs
