1.
Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.
Saadi
Exercise forbearance. All tasks are arduous before they become effortless.
2.
It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.
Jonathan Ive
3.
Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Laozi
4.
Writing is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment-you know that's what you're in for, for whatever time it takes.
Chinua Achebe
5.
All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.
Morarji Desai
6.
The attractions of ceramics lie partly in its contradictions. It is both difficult and easy, with an element beyond our control. It is both extremely fragile and durable. Like 'Sumi' ink painting, it does not lend itself to erasures and indecision.
Isamu Noguchi
7.
When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.
Laozi
8.
Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.
Laozi
9.
On both difficult and easy terrain, you must know the 'tenable' and 'fatal' ground. Occupy tenable ground and attack on fatal ground.
Sun Bin
10.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
Thomas Jefferson
11.
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Therefore having and not having arise together. Difficult and easy complement each other. Long and short contrast each other. High and low rest upon each other. Voice and sound harmonize each other. Front and back follow one another.
Laozi