Quotations about:
    problem

Nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen — but we keep trying to tell them.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author

The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)
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No problem of any consequence can be tackled head on.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author

The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 9 (1963)
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A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) English novelist, poet

Far from the Madding Crowd, ch. 18 (1874)
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A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) American writer

“‘Thoughts are Things,'” Missouri Ruralist (5 Nov 1917)
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Reprinted in Stephen Hines, ed., Laura Ingalls Wilder - Farm Journalist (2007).

At least there are more forms of escapism than those who bandy that word about are always aware of. An artist, for instance, may escape from the problems of his art — which are hard to solve — into a consideration of the problems of society which he sometimes seems to think require of him only that he complain about them. Even the ordinary citizen is not always guiltless of similar techniques and it is, for example, sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being.

Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) American educator, writer, critic, naturalist

“Whom Do We Picket Tonight?” Harper’s (Mar 1950)
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Reprinted in If You Don't Mind My Saying (1964).

Artists and scientists realize that no solution is ever final, but that each new creative step points the way to the next artistic or scientific problem. In contrast, those who embrace religious revelations and delusional systems tend to see them as unshakeable and permanent.

Anthony Storr (1920-2001) English psychiatrist and author

Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners and Madmen, Introduction (1996)
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To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you.

Eric S. Raymond (b. 1957) American software developer, writer [a.k.a. ESR]

The Cathedral and the Bazaar, ch. 2, Rule 18 (1999)
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The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.

R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, ch. 5 (1926)
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Difficulties are things that show what men are.

Epictetus (c.55-c.135) Greek (Phrygian) Stoic philosopher

The Discourses, Book 1, ch. 24

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish philosopher, theologian

(Misattributed)

Misattributed to Kierkegaard by Cyril Connolly, Horizon, vol. 11 (1945). More properly attributed to Jacobus Johannes van der Leeuw (1893–1934), The Conquest of Illusion, ch. 1: "The mystery of life in not a problem to be solved, it is a reality to be experienced."

Unless someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.

Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) American author, illustrator [pseud. of Theodor Geisel]

The Lorax (1971)

A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman

(Attributed)

Sometimes attributed to John Dewey.

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman

(Attributed)

Quoted in Thomas Alvin Boyd, Charles F. Kettering: A Biography (1957)

This problem, when solved, will be simple.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman

Sign at the General Motors research laboratories
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Quoted by Kettering in "Don't Be Afraid to Stumble," The Rotarian (Jan 1952)

The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve a problem it is necessary to think.

Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977) American educator and educational philosopher

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

If this stone won’t budge at present and is wedged in, move some of the other stones around it first.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) Austrian-English philosopher

Culture and Value, 1940 (1977) [tr. Winch (1980)]

There are few situations in life that cannot be honourably settled, and without loss of time, either by suicide, a bag of gold, or by thrusting a despised antagonist over the edge of a precipice upon a dark night.

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) English author [Ernest Brammah Smith]

“The Story of Hien and the Chief Examiner,” Kai Lung’s Golden Hours (1922)

The older I get, the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first — a process which often reduces the most complex human problems to manageable proportions.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)

“Let’s Be Honest with Ourselves,” Reader’s Digest (Dec 1963)

The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

“Case Histories Five Years after,” Operations Research 8.2 (1960)

If thy Business be perplexed, divide it, and look upon all its Parts and sides.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer

Introductio ad Prudentiam, # 583 (1725)
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At the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong.

Henry George (1839-1897) American economist

Social Problems, ch. 1 (1883)

When a mess, which is a system of problems, is taken apart, it loses its essential properties and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a mess depends more on how the treatment of its parts interact than how they act independently of each other. A partial solution to a whole system of problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken separately.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

“The future of operational research is past,” The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol 30 (1979)

To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist

Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (1934) [tr. Hull (1959)]

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are extracted from messes by analysis. Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

“The future of operational research is past,” The Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol 30, pp.93-104. (1979)

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967) American industrialist

(Attributed)

In reactive problem solving we walk into the future facing the past — we move away from, rather than toward, something. This often results in unforeseen consequences that are more distasteful than the deficiencies removed.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

The Art of Problem Solving (1978)

A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

“The development of operations research as a science,” Operations Research (Jun 1956)

There is almost no marital problem that can’t be helped enormously by taking off your clothes.

Garrison Keillor (b. 1942) American entertainer, author

“The Old Scout,” The Writer’s Almanac (4 Oct 2005)

Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist

Redesigning the Future (1974)

Be sure of the fact before you lose time in searching for a cause.

James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer

The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
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When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet

Hamlet, Act 4, sc. 5, l. 84ff [Claudius] (c. 1600)
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In political institutions, almost everything we call an abuse was once a remedy.

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist

Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]

If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties tenfold; and those who pursue these methods get themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)

Letter to Peter Carr (19 Aug 1785)
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If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact, not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.

Shimon Peres (1923-2016) Polish-Israeli politician, statesman

(Attributed)

Widely attributed to Peres in different sources. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal (7 Feb 2001). Donald Rumsfeld says that Peres made the observation to him.

Don’t make excuses — make good!

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher

A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911)

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist

Peter’s Almanac, entry for 24 Sep. (1982).

I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem with decency and self-respect and whatever courage is demanded, is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from.

William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist

Letter to David Kirk, Oxford, Miss. (8 Mar 1956)
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Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]

“The Divine Afflatus,” New York Evening Mail (16 Nov 1917)
    (Source)

Reprinted in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy, ch. 25 (1949).

Variants:

• "There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
• "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong."

A rain came along last night and gently wet San Diego. It cleaned off my car except for a stubborn bird blessing on the hood. I had been staring at it for several days and the rain cleaned everything except that single spot. (sigh) For the most part, things take care of themselves if we just let them, but every now and again we’ve got to get involved, and dirty our hands.

(Other Authors and Sources)

Jeff Shepherd, Jeff’s Weekly Quotations, #39 (1994)

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking at it that one overcomes it; but, rather, often by working on the one next to it. Certain people and certain things require to be approached on an angle.

André Gide (1869-1951) French author, Nobel laureate

Journal (26 Oct 1924) [tr. O’Brien (1951)]

Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers on their road. Both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist

Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 241 (1822)
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After all my time here, I’ve yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, didn’t become still more complicated.

Poul Anderson (1926-2001) American writer

Call Me Joe [Arne Viken] (1957)

Sometimes attributed to Arthur Koestler (who attributed the quote to Anderson). See here for more details (and a reference to WIST).