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The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
Sep 11, 2025
A solved problem creates two new problems, and the best prescription for happy living is not to solve any more problems.
The rationale for accepting or rejecting any theory is thus fundamentally based on the idea of problem-solving progress. If one research tradition has solved more important problems than its rivals, then accepting that tradition is rational precisely to the degree that we are aiming to "progress," i.e., to maximize the scope f solved problems. In other words, the choice of one tradition over its rivals is a progressive (and thus a rational) choice precisely to the extent that the chosen tradition is a better problem solver than its rivals.
It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.
To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?
You must maximize the probability that someone shows up at front door of your store or website and ends up with a solved problem.
All Nature bristles with the marks of interrogation-among the grass and the petals of flowers, amidst the feathers of birds and the hairs of mammals, on mountain and moorland, in sea and sky-everywhere. It is one of the joys of life to discover those marks of interrogation, these unsolved and half-solved problems and try to answer their questions.
Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.
We only think when we are confronted with problems.
A GREAT discovery solves a great problem but there is a grain of discovery in any problem.
Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man
If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution.
Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.
When the solution is simple, God is answering.
The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
There are no solved problems; there are only problems that are more or less solved.
I really do think cancer will largely be a solved problem. I think most of the infectious diseases like malaria - our foundation is very involved - once we're finishing polio eradication, then starting up this malaria eradication, and getting that done as fast as we can.
The problems that exist in this world can not be solved by the level of thinking that created them.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, it's hard to eat spaghetti.
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.
It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
To politicians, solved problems represent a dire threat - of unemployment and poverty. That's why no problem ever tackled by the government has ever been solved. What they want is lots of problems they can promise to solve, so that we'll keep electing them - or letting them keep their jobs in a bureaucracy metastasizing like cancer.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.
Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.
We have always tried to concentrate on the long term, and to place bets on technology we believe will have a significant impact over time. It's hard to imagine now, but when we started Google most people thought search was a solved problem and that there was no money to be made apart from some banner advertising. We felt the exact opposite: that search quality was very poor, and that awesome user experiences would clearly make money.
Problems are guidelines, not stop signs!
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.
To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The world is full of educated derelicts.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.