Quotations about:
    solution


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A complaint that’s not looking for a solution is a disease not looking for a cure.

dennis lehane
Dennis Lehane (b. 1965) American novelist, screenwriter
Since We Fell (2017)
    (Source)

A frequent saying of the character Brian Delacroix.
 
Added on 8-Feb-24 | Last updated 8-Feb-24
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There is nothing as easy as denouncing. It don’t take much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
“Weekly Article” column (1935-07-28)
    (Source)
 
Added on 17-Jan-24 | Last updated 17-Jan-24
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Whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve them.

Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande (b. 1993) American singer, songwriter, actress
“7 Rings”, Thank U, Next (2018)
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Added on 8-Nov-23 | Last updated 8-Nov-23
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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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Added on 22-Jun-23 | Last updated 22-Jun-23
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We cannot learn what causes violence and how we could prevent it as long as we are thinking in the traditional moral and legal terms. The only questions that this way of thinking can ask take the form: “How evil (or heroic) was this particular act of violence, and how much punishment (or reward) does the person who did it deserve?” But even if it were possible to gain the knowledge that would be necessary to answer those questions (which it is not), answers would still not help us in the least to understand what causes violence or how we could prevent it — these are empirical not moral questions.

James Gilligan (b. c. 1936) American psychiatrist and author
Preventing Violence, Introduction (2001)
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Added on 9-Aug-22 | Last updated 9-Aug-22
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Like enough, you won’t be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon’s not the only thing
That’s cured by hanging from a string.

Hugh Kingsmill
Hugh Kingsmill (1889-1949) English biographer, literary critic, man of letters [pen name of Hugh Kingsmill Lunn]
“Two Poems, After A. E. Housman”, No. 1, st. 2 (1925)
    (Source)

Houseman, writing to his brother, said of the parody: "It's the best I have seen, and indeed, the only good one."
 
Added on 2-Aug-22 | Last updated 2-Aug-22
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HELENA: Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven.

Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 222ff (1.1.222-223) (1602?)
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Added on 20-Jul-22 | Last updated 9-Feb-24
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To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer [Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald]
(Attributed)

No actual citation found. Also often attributed (also without citation) to Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
 
Added on 21-Apr-22 | Last updated 1-Jun-22
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Thus, because we are rapidly advancing along this non-sustainable course, the world’s environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies. While all of those grim phenomena have been endemic to humanity throughout our history, their frequency increases with environmental degradation, population pressure, and the resulting poverty and political instability.

Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Part 4, ch. 16 (2005)
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Added on 4-Apr-22 | Last updated 4-Apr-22
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While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, critic [Albert Chinualumogu Achebe]
Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
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Added on 11-Mar-22 | Last updated 11-Mar-22
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There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) South African cleric, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Laureate
(Attributed)
 
Added on 4-Jan-22 | Last updated 4-Jan-22
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The problem of drugs, of divorce, of race prejudice, of unmarried pregnancy, and so on — as if evil were a problem, something that an be solved, that has an answer, like a problem in fifth grade arithmetic. If you want the answer, you just look in the back of the book. That is escapism, that posing evil as a “problem,” instead of what it is: all the pain and suffering and waste and loss and injustice we will meet our loves long, and must face and cope with over and over and over, and admit, and live with, in order to live human lives at all.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
“The Child and the Shadow,” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (Apr 1975)
    (Source)

On the difficulty of "realistic fiction" for children to teach morality. First delivered as a speech; later reprinted in The Language of the Night (1979).
 
Added on 3-Jan-22 | Last updated 3-Jan-22
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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)
    (Source)
 
Added on 11-Feb-21 | Last updated 11-Feb-21
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Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness. Luck seldom measures swords with wisdom. Most things in life quick wit and sharp vision can set right.

Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 119 (Diels) [tr. Bakewell (1907)]
    (Source)

Bakewell lists this under "The Golden Sayings of Democritus." Freeman notes this as one of the Gnômae, from a collection called "Maxims of Democratês," but because Stobaeus quotes many of these as "Maxims of Democritus," they are generally attributed to the latter. Alternate translations:

  • "Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness." [tr. Freeman (1948)]
  • "Men fashioned the image of chance as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness; for chance rarely fights with wisdom, and a man of intelligence will, by foresight, set straight most things in his life." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
 
Added on 12-Jan-21 | Last updated 23-Feb-21
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The greatest skill in cards is to know when to discard; the smallest of current trumps is worth more than the ace of trumps of the last game.

[La mejor treta del juego es saberse descartar: más importa la menor carta del triunfo que corre que la mayor del que pasó.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 31 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
    (Source)

(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:

The true skill at play, is to know how to discard. The lowest Card that turns up, is better than the highest of the former dealing.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]

The great trick in cards lies in knowing what to discard: and the deuce of a suit that is trump, is more valuable than the ace of a suit that was.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]

The trick is to know what cards to get rid of. The least card in the winning hand in front of you is more important than the best card in the losing hand you just laid down.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]

 
Added on 31-Jan-20 | Last updated 26-Jun-23
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A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Proverbs in Prose (1819)
 
Added on 10-Nov-17 | Last updated 10-Nov-17
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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."
 
Added on 8-Dec-16 | Last updated 11-Dec-16
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I doubt if there is in the world a single problem, whether social, political, or economic, which would not find ready solution if men and nations would rule their lives according to the plain teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
“Greeting to the World’s Christian Endeavor Convention,” Melbourne (15 Jun 1938)
 
Added on 9-Oct-16 | Last updated 9-Oct-16
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It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.

Deng - cat is black or white - wist_info quote

Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) Chinese revolutionary, politician, statesman [Teng Hsiao-p'ing]
Speech, Communist Youth League conference (Jul 1962)

There are a variety of translations, and Deng used the phrase on numerous occasions.
 
Added on 5-Aug-16 | Last updated 5-Aug-16
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In the crisis of this hour — as in all others that we have faced since our Nation began — there are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them in the last analysis really come down to this: Deny your responsibilities.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech, Democratic Party Dinner, Washington, DC (1967-10-07)
    (Source)

Sometimes paraphrased "There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility."
 
Added on 17-Jun-16 | Last updated 28-Mar-23
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Often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse.

[Souvent la peur d’un mal nous conduit dans un pire.]

Boileau-Despereaux - fear of one evil - wist_info quote

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711) French poet and critic
The Art of Poetry [L’Art Poétique], Canto 1, l. 64 (1674)
    (Source)

(Source (French)).

Though this sounds like a profound philosophical comment, in reality it refers to writers overcompensating for problems in their work. Soame (1892) translates this and the following line thus:

A verse was weak, you turn it much too strong.
And grow obscure for fear you should be long.

 
Added on 4-May-16 | Last updated 27-Jun-22
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Unless someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.

Geisel - cares a whole awful lot - wist_info quote 2

Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) American author, illustrator [pseud. of Theodor Geisel]
The Lorax (1971)
 
Added on 19-Apr-16 | Last updated 19-Apr-16
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A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.
Charles Ketting - problem well stated - wist_info

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

Sometimes attributed to John Dewey.
 
Added on 16-Oct-15 | Last updated 16-Oct-15
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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)
 
Added on 14-Aug-15 | Last updated 14-Aug-15
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This problem, when solved, will be simple.

Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
Sign at the General Motors research laboratories
    (Source)

Quoted by Kettering in "Don't Be Afraid to Stumble," The Rotarian (Jan 1952)
 
Added on 7-Aug-15 | Last updated 7-Aug-15
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Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there’s no point trying to look in that direction because it won’t be coming from there.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Salmon of Doubt (2002)
 
Added on 29-Jun-15 | Last updated 24-Jun-15
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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)
 
Added on 15-Jun-15 | Last updated 15-Jul-20
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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)]
 
Added on 27-Apr-15 | Last updated 27-Apr-15
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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)
 
Added on 13-Apr-15 | Last updated 13-Apr-15
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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)
 
Added on 9-Apr-15 | Last updated 9-Apr-15
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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)
    (Source)
 
Added on 6-Apr-15 | Last updated 7-Feb-24
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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)
 
Added on 30-Mar-15 | Last updated 30-Mar-15
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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)
 
Added on 26-Mar-15 | Last updated 26-Mar-15
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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)]
 
Added on 23-Mar-15 | Last updated 23-Mar-15
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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)
 
Added on 12-Mar-15 | Last updated 12-Mar-15
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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)
 
Added on 22-Jan-15 | Last updated 22-Jan-15
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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)
 
Added on 10-Dec-14 | Last updated 10-Dec-14
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“So?” Bob said. “Hat up, go kill her. Problem solved.”
“Bob,” I said. “You can’t just go around killing people.”
“I know. That’s why you should do it.”
“No, no. I can’t go around killing people, either.”

Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Grave Peril (2001)
 
Added on 19-Aug-14 | Last updated 19-Aug-14
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In political institutions, almost everything we call an abuse was once a remedy.

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]
 
Added on 29-Jul-13 | Last updated 13-May-16
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Questions show the mind’s range, and answers, its subtlety.
 
[Les questions montrent l’étendue de l’esprit, et les réponses sa finesse.]

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 4 “De la Nature des Esprits [On the Nature of Minds],” ¶ 62 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 3, ¶ 21]
    (Source)

(Source (French))

While confirmed as an entry in the French, I was unable to find translations other than Lyttelton's in my various sources.
 
Added on 13-May-13 | Last updated 30-Jan-24
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That’s just the trouble, Sam Houston — it’s always my move. And damnit, I sometimes can’t tell whether I’m making the right move or not. Now take this Vietnam mess. How in the hell can anyone know for sure what’s right and what’s wrong, Sam? I got some of the finest brains in this country — people like Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow, and Dean Acheson — making some strong and convincing arguments for us to stay in there and not pull out. Then I’ve got some people like George Ball and Fulbright — also intelligent men whose motives I can’t rightly distrust — who keep telling me we’ve got to de-escalate or run the risk of a total war. And, Sam, I’ve got to listen to both sides. […] I’ve just got to choose between my opposing experts. No way of avoiding it. But I sure as hell wish I could really know what’s right.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Comment to Sam Houston Johnson (1968-02)
    (Source)

Recalled in Sam Houston Johnson, My Brother Lyndon, ch. 1 (1969).
 
Added on 23-Jan-13 | Last updated 21-Jul-23
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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.
 
Added on 23-Feb-12 | Last updated 24-Nov-14
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There are some remedies worse than the disease.

Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 301 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
 
Added on 21-Oct-10 | Last updated 20-Feb-17
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Sandman 72 p13

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 simply assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British fabulist
Sandman, Book 10. The Wake, # 72 “Chapter 3, In Which We Wake” [Destruction] (1995-11)
    (Source)
 
Added on 13-Apr-10 | Last updated 30-Nov-23
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Don’t make excuses — make good!

Hubbard - make good - wist_info quote

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911)
 
Added on 10-Mar-10 | Last updated 11-Feb-16
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It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little. Do what you can.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, Lecture 19 “On the Conduct of the Understanding, Part 2” (1849)
    (Source)

Based on a lecture in a series given at the Royal Institution (1804-1806).
 
Added on 17-Nov-08 | Last updated 14-Nov-23
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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.

Mencken - neat plausible and wrong - wist_info quote

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."
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 14-Dec-21
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I never, ever say, “I can’t,” about anything. I might say, “I don’t have the authority to make that decision,” or, “Building A is too heavy for me to lift,” or, “I will need training before I pilot that space shuttle.”

(Other Authors and Sources)
Mike Huber, Techwr-L
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 28-Apr-14
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All things can be cured by salt water: sweat, tears, or the ocean.

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) Danish writer [pseud. of Karen Christence, Countess Blixen]
(Attributed)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 13-Mar-20
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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)]
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Dec-14
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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)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 21-Nov-21
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