Difficulty and Ease

Sometimes people choose to do things not because they are easy, but because they are difficult . . .
 
“We often arrive at ease by first going through difficulty.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
 
“When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.” -Isak Dinesen (pseudonym of Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (1885 - 1962))

“Have you ever noticed how most things, though certainly not all, turn out to be easier than we had thought they would be once we get started, and the next thing you know, they have been done?” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
 
“Just because something is difficult does not mean you should not do it.” -Author Unknown
 
“Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them, they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.” -Orison S. Marden (Orison Swett Marden (1848 - 1924))
 
“I’m not telling you it is going to be easy; I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” -Author Unknown
 
“All things are difficult before they are easy.” -Thomas Fuller (1654 - 1734): “Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs” (1732), number 560
 
“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” -Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
 
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do. Not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our ability to do has increased.” -David O. McKay (David Oman McKay (1873 - 1970))
 
“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.” [translation to English]
“La distance n’y fait rien; il n’y a que le premier pas qui coute.” [original French]
-Marie de Vichy-Chamrond (1697 - 1780): letter (7 July 1763) to Jean Le Rond d’Alembert
 
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” -Henry Ford (1863-1947)
 
“Everything is difficult at first.” -Author Unknown

“The level path is easy, but it will not bring you to the mountaintop.” -Idel Dreimer
 
“Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk boldly through them.” -Orison S. Marden (Orison Swett Marden (1850 - 1924))
 
“I am always looking for an easier way of doing everything . . . not that I’m lazy, but that it gives me more life-energy to put into other things.” -David Hugh Beaumont (born 1966)
 
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca (also known as Seneca the Younger or simply Seneca (3 B.C.E. - C.E. 65))
 
“The problem of life is not to make life easier, but to make people stronger.” -David Starr Jordan (1851 - 1931)
 
“If you want to make an easy job harder, just keep putting it off.” -William James (1842 - 1910): as quoted in “The Letters of William James” (1920), ‘To Carl Stumpf’ (1 January 1886)
 
“Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard think makes it impossible.” -George C. Lorimer (George Claude Lorimer (1838 - 1904))
 
“Take the gentle path.” -George Herbert (1593 - 1633)
 
“There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.” -Terence (Publius Terentius Afer (about 185 B.C.E. - 159 B.C.E.)): “Heauton Timoroumenos” (English: “The Self-Tormentor”)
 
“It never becomes easy; it becomes possible.” -Agnes de Mille (1905 - 1993)
 
“The most difficult jobs look easy until you try to do them.” -William Feather (William Arthur Feather (1889 - 1981)): as quoted in Ted Landphair: “Featherisms” (6 October 2008)
 
“If your path is more difficult, it is because your calling is higher.” -Author Unknown

“A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.” -William Cowper (1731 - 1800)
 
“Nothing is easy to the unwilling.” -Nikki Giovanni (Yolande Cornelia ‘Nikki’ Giovanni, Junior (born 1943))
 
“In this age which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is in the long run the easiest.” -Henry Miller (Henry Valentine Miller (1891 - 1980))
 
“Absorption in ease is one of the most reliable signs of present or impending decay.” -Richard Weaver
 
“There is no fruit that is not bitter before it is ripe.” -Publilius Syrus (85 B.C.E. - 43 B.C.E.)
 
“One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.” -Jack Penn
 
“Sometimes there’s only the hard way.” -Mary E. Pearson
 
“Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Half effort does not produce half results. It produces no results. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last.” -Hamilton Holt
 
“If you only do what is easy, you will always remain weak.” -Joyce Meyer (born 1943 as Pauline Joyce Hutchison)
 
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” -Beverly Sills (1929 - 2007)
 
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” -Marie Curie (Marie Sklodowska-Curie (1867 - 1934))
 
“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” -Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
 
“When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” -Creighton W. Abrams (Creighton Williams Abrams, Junior (1914 - 1974))
 
“One thing you learn the hard way is that there is no easy way.” -Author Unknown

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how but very difficult when you do.” -Edgar Degas (born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas (1834 - 1917))
 
“If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.” -Louis Brandeis (Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856 - 1941))
 
“Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, it no longer matters.” -Scott Peck (1936 - 2005): “The Road Less Traveled” (1978)
 
“Work hard to make things easier.” -Pete Carril (Peter Joseph ‘Pete’ Carril (born 1930))
 
“Don’t confuse your path with your destination. Just because it’s stormy now doesn’t mean that you aren’t headed for sunshine.” -Author Unknown
 
“Obstacles are great incentives.” -Jules Michelet (1798 - 1874)
 
“What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.” -Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)
 
“In no direction that we turn do we find ease or comfort. If we are honest and if we have the will to win, we find only danger, hard work, and iron resolution.” -Wendall Willkie (Wendell Lewis Willkie (1892 - 1944))
 
“Looking back we see with great clarity, and what once appeared as difficulties now reveal themselves as blessings.” -Dan Millman (Daniel Jay ‘Dan’ Millman (born 1946))
 
“It’s easy if you try.” -Author Unknown
 
We are MFOL! . . . that wasn’t difficult at all . . . tee-hee-hee . . . tee-hee-hee . . .