Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
To every problem, there is a most simple solution.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.
I’m a problem-solver.
Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.
We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us.
If you’re overwhelmed by the size of a problem, break it down into smaller pieces.
If you can stare hard at your problems, they almost always shrink or disappear, because you almost always find a better way of dealing with them than if you don’t face them head on. The more difficult the problem, the more important it is that you stare at it and deal with it.
Manage the cause, not the result.
If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.
The ultimate purpose of collecting the data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation.
Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.
Merely complaining without proposing an alternative offers nothing.
Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.
Think of the solution, not the problem.
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.