Literary notes about Difficult (AI summary)
The word "difficult" is used in literature to signal a wide range of challenges—from physical obstacles to moral dilemmas and intellectual pursuits. Authors employ it to underscore the inherent complexity of tasks, as seen when Statius describes the arduous effort to change a loved one’s environment ([1]), or when Plato contrasts the ease of crafting good laws under ideal circumstances with the arduous reality of governing ([2]). Meanwhile, it captures existential and emotional strains, whether in the uncertain, almost dreamlike quality of recalling faded memories ([3]) or in chronicling internal conflicts that make decision-making a burdensome affair ([4], [5]). In war, natural phenomena, and even in the quiet struggles of everyday life, "difficult" conveys not only inherent complications but also the perseverance required to overcome them ([6], [7], [8]).
- Statius undertakes the difficult task of drawing his wife from the pleasures of Rome to that calm retreat.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - I am endeavouring to show you how easy under the conditions supposed, and how difficult under any other, is the task of giving a city good laws.
— from Laws by Plato - Reveries about Sónya had had something merry and playful in them, but to dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - There is, however, a preliminary question which is rather less difficult, and that is: What do we mean by truth and falsehood?
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell - The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one.
— from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - Retreats are certainly the most difficult operations in war.
— from The Art of War by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini - It was terribly dark, and difficult to make out anything.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne
