93 Troubling Quotes

In the vast landscape of human expression, quotes serve as snapshots of thought, emotion, and perspective. They hold the power to inspire, enlighten, and even unsettle us. Troubling quotes, in particular, tap into the more complex and darker sides of human nature and societal issues. These sayings prompt us to reflect deeply, question norms, and confront uncomfortable truths. In this blog, we've curated a collection of 93 such quotes that will stir your mind and challenge your perceptions. Whether they resonate with your personal experiences or provoke a newfound awareness, these quotes are sure to leave a lasting impact.

1. “Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” - Benjamin Franklin

2. “Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

3. “If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.” - Cormac McCarthy

4. “Let's save tomorrow's troubles for tomorrow.” - Patricia Briggs

5. “It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world.” - Ian Fleming

6. “A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.” - Robert A. Heinlein

7. “I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.” - Montesquieu

8. “I got my heart's desire, and there my troubles began.” - Lev Grossman

9. “Withdraw, like a turtle, into a hard yet harmless shell, ornamented with beautiful memories of the past.from the book 'I Know Who You Are!” - Mariam and Fatima Masood

10. “the more you stared up crap the more it's going to smell (/)” - Mary Sumner

11. “I don't damsel well. Distress, I can do. Damseling? Not so much.” - James Patterson

12. “There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."(The Mill)” - Anton Chekhov

13. “Whenever you look back and say "if" you know you're in trouble. There is no such thing as "if". The only thing that matters is what really happened.” - D.J. MacHale

14. “Waddya want me to do? through my sling shot at him?” - Hughes

15. “No, no, I never mess around.” - Rick Riordan

16. “I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.” - Raymond Chandler

17. “I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.” - Karl Lagerfeld

18. “It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.” - Neil Gaiman

19. “Should the king in exile pretend he is happy there?Should he not seek his own country?His miseries are his ally; they urge him on. Let them grow, if need be. But do not forsake the secret of life; do not despise those kingly desires. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just absence of the discontent self – it’s not worth it.” - John Eldredge

20. “In a world where the dead have returned to life, the word" trouble' loses much of its meaning.” - Dennis Hopper

21. “The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers' meetingOr luck or fame.Mine were of trouble,And mine were steady;So I was readyWhen trouble came.” - A.E. Housman

22. “Trouble is a part of your life--if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.” - Dinah Shore

23. “My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.Am I a troubled kid?Yeah. You could say that.” - Rick Riordan

24. “There had been a problem in Bean's house. The problem was staples. Bean loved staples. She loved them so much that she had stapled things that weren't supposed to be stapled. The things looked better stapled, but her mother didn't think so, and now Bean was outside.She was going to be outside for a long time.” - Annie Barrows

25. “You're more trouble than you're worth." "I'm a girl. That's my job.” - Tamora Pierce

26. “Trouble is a sieve through which we sift our acquaintances. Those too big to pass through are our friends.” - Arlene Francis

27. “I hear that you were on a date with Trouble Kelp. Are you two planning on building a bivouac any time soon?” - Eoin Colfer

28. “The trouble in life is not that you are extraordinarily or ordinarily talented but you are read posthumously.” - Santosh Kalwar

29. “Dempseys are never in trouble. We just have stretches of life that are more interesting than others.” - Jennifer Crusie

30. “The trouble with lifeisn't that there is no answer,but that there are so many answers” - Ruth Benedict

31. “When people whom trouble is not a problem find themselves in a predicament, they are woefully unprepared... I, however, considered myself a professional.” - Nancy Wolfe

32. “Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable.” - Stevie Smith

33. “No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.” - Holly Black

34. “The opportunity was too perfect to miss. Harry crept silently around behind Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, bent down, and scooped a large handful of mud out of the path.'We were just talking about your friend Hagrid,'Malfoy said to Ron. 'Just trying to imagine what he's saying to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. D'you think he'll cry when they cut off his hippogriff's—'SPLAT.Malfoy's head jerked back as the mud hit him; his silverblond hair was suddenly dripping in muck.” - J.K. Rowling

35. “During moments of strife and 'dis-ease', check your flow and redirect your focus to that which is naturally good.” - T.F. Hodge

36. “Life with trials hard may press me;Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.” - Henry F. Lyte

37. “It's asking for trouble to listen to music alone.” - Janice Galloway

38. “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 bad 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.

39. “Man was designed in a way in which he must eat in order to give him a solid reason to go to work everyday. This helps to keep him out of trouble. God is wise.” - Criss Jami

40. “Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.” - Criss Jami

41. “The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgement by the party of the second part's glamour. Put it like this: the male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the non-rabbit) and realizing too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce.” - P.G. Wodehouse

42. “You know my name, not my story. You've heard what I've done, but not what I've been through.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

43. “I to my perilsOf cheat and charmerCame clad in armourBy stars benign.Hope lies to mortalsAnd most believe her,But man's deceiver Was never mine.The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers' meetingOr luck or fame.Mine were of trouble,And mine were steady;So I was readyWhen trouble came.” - A.E. Housman

44. “Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have 'em?” - Thomas Hardy

45. “Everybody loves a thing more if it has cost him trouble.” - Steve Berry

46. “You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.” - Aristophanes

47. “We don't shoot somebody soon, I'm gonna forget how” - Dave Barry

48. “Kakimi chertyami oni viigrali holodnuyu voinu?"This translates roughly to: "How the hell did these people win the Cold War?” - Dave Barry

49. “Always stick to the story. It was when you started backtracking that people got in trouble. Interrogation 101.” - Nicholas Sparks

50. “Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.” - Harry S. Truman

51. “A tree doesn't make a thunderstorm, but any fool knows where lightning's going to strike.” - Patrick Rothfuss

52. “There," she said, waving her hands at the corridor. The expression of delight on her face was a very bad thing to see."You're wrong! You don't know where your parents are, do you?" she turned and looked at Coraline. "Now," she said, "you're going to stay here for ever and always.” - Neil Gaiman

53. “It's patterns," he said. "If they think you're a hero, they're wrong. After you die, you don't get to be Beowulf or Perseus or Rama anymore. Whole different set of rules. Chess, not checkers. Go, not chess. You understand?” - Neil Gaiman

54. “I love fortune readings! because when I get in troubles, if the reading says that I am in a lucky day, I can think my troubles are just some kind of mistakes, and if the reading says that I am in the unlucky day, I can think that my troubles are just because of my bad luck. Either ways, I can know the reason of my troubles.” - Hiroko Sakai

55. “my problem is that my body acts before my brain thinks... it sometimes brings me huge trouble, or also huge success. recently, my body and brain got come to an agreement. it may be far better to live this gambling life than living in boring average ...they at least make my art more interesting” - Hiroko Sakai

56. “...he was forty bushels beyond bamboozled.” - Chuck Klosterman

57. “You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far.” - Uncle Remus

58. “Because he had been- and in many ways still was- such a brilliant man, he no doubt understood the nature of his memory problem. It wasn't pride that prevented him from asking for help but a deep aversion to causing more trouble than necessary for those of us who lived in the normal world.” - Yoko Ogawa

59. “The blame is on me...I knew you were trouble when you walked in..” - Taylor Swift

60. “This is what comes of having a heart, even a very small and young one. It causes no end of trouble, and that’s the truth.” - Catherynne M. Valente

61. “Both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets – neither of us have any.” - Vincent Van Gogh

62. “Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."[Commencement Address, Wellesley College, 1996]” - Nora Ephron

63. “Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world?” - Ken Follett

64. “There's trouble in every house, and some in the street.--Irish Proverb” - Dorien Kelly

65. “Harm is one of those things that I always mean to keep clear of, but somehow my intentions and me don't chime as they ought, and people will get hit with stones that I throw at my neighbor's dogs...” - Emily Dickinson

66. “I started to enjoy the regal sport of cockfighting... but I'm still having trouble getting the hang of windmilling the bayonet” - Josh Stern

67. “He was impossibly gorgeous. I had trouble taking it in at times” - Sylvia Day

68. “When there is noise and crowds, there is trouble; When everything is silent and perfect, There is just perfection and nothing To fill the air.” - Dejan Stojanovic

69. “Because it's my fault, you see. I did it. And you must always clean up your own messes, even when your messes look just like you and curtsy very viciously when what they mean is, I am going to make trouble forever and ever.” - Catherynne M. Valente

70. “I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave” - Veronica Roth

71. “And no matter what anybody says, I don't believe all this trouble started when women got the vote. As far as I'm concerned, it goddamn well got started when you taught each other how to read.” - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

72. “If I had a talent I could claim, it would be as a finder of trouble. Which is undoubtedly what I'd find by sticking my nose where it had no right to be. But would I let a thought of trouble stop me? Not a snowflake's chance in hell.” - Keri Arthur

73. “He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not here to start trouble. I am just doing some research for my thesis.”“If you don’t get out of this bar, you are going to be writing your thesis via Ouija board.” - Jessica Fortunato

74. “I'll get right on right about you, you've got trouble right about now, you've got trouble right about now.” - Tegan Quin

75. “I avoided writers very carefully because they can perpetuate trouble as no one else can.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

76. “I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference.” - Ernest Hemingway

77. “I was deep in the poo poo dungeon.” - Sam Cheever

78. “Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.” - Anne Lamott

79. “When I was young I wanted so much to be like her. What a blessing are those moments when there is nothing to worry about, no thought of trouble or grief in the world.” - Belinda Jeffrey

80. “The light clicks on, right above my head, drawing my eyes to it. The moment I look up, squinting, I know I’m in trouble. There isn’t even a guy leaning against the corner, trying to play bad cop. There isn’t a guy smiling and offering me a cup of coffee. There’s just one man in a suit, with a folder in his arms that he isn’t looking at. He’s looking at me, raising his eyebrows and looking as if I have a note stuck to my forehead that I haven’t noticed yet.” - Israel Elysium

81. “Trust and believe, and you will achieve.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

82. “There's a difference between driving and texting. When your driving your eyes have to be open and on the road watching the cars around you, road signs, and traffic lights. Along with your mind on the road and destination. Which means you are multitasking. When your texting your eyes are on your cell phone screen and key pad. Along with your mind on what your going to say next. So how can you do both? Please stop!” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

83. “It is a troublesome thing, Halford, this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended.” - Anne Brontë

84. “Your grand daughter may not be looking for trouble, but trouble is looking for her.” - Alice Hoffman

85. “You don't have to be strong to survive a bad situation; you simply need a plan.” - Shannon L. Alder

86. “Trouble makes us one with every human being in the world - and unless we touch others, we're out of touch with life.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

87. “Every violent storm will eventually give way to sunshine; every dark night will finally fade into dawn.” - Steve Goodier

88. “You have a genius for bringing trouble upon yourself” - Georgette Heyer

89. “An idle tongue is the mother of all conflicts.” - Dennis E. Adonis

90. “Life is so meaningless without trouble.” - M.F. Moonzajer

91. “How upset is she?” “Let me put it this way,” his brother began, “All the shit you’ve shoveled from stalls in your life is nothing compared to how deep you’re in it now.” - Lindsey Brookes

92. “Let us not see today's troubles as a reason to give up; let us see them as an opportunity for God to deliver.” - Dillon Burroughs

93. “The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.” - Steven Pressfield