Alice Rivlin Quotes

Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

It's very difficult to solve a lot of problems from the top down.

Early on, in discussions of financial oversight, people would say, 'Well, this is a very complicated problem, therefore it requires a complicated solution.' And at that step, I would say, 'Well, wait a minute. Just because it's a complicated problem doesn't mean the best course of action immediately is one that's complicated.'

There are many people who want simple solutions, but there are none ... nor will there be.

The world is complicated. But does every problem require a complicated solution?

The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seekthe simple solution.

When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions.

Our agenda, by necessity, is as complex and encompassing as the problems we face: beware of politicians promising simple solutions.

If you have a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, you don't have a very interesting problem.

Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.

I'd be wary of simple solutions to complex problems.

People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged.

Sometimes big problems are best solved with lots of small and creative solutions.

To me, unconventional thinking is approaching a problem and asking, 'Why not? Why can't something be done?' If someone can't give me a good reason why you can't do something, I find a way to do it.

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

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.

The thorniest problems are never technological.

It’s not very profitable to sit and think nowadays. So many problems, and they seem all to have such twists to them – nothing is straightforward.

We cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us — political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve.

There are no simple solutions to today’s problems.

Health care is a design problem. Dependence on foreign oil is a design problem. To some extent, poverty is a design problem. We need design thinkers to solve those problems, and most people who are in positions of political power are not design thinkers, to put it mildly.

Sometimes a problem will seem completely insurmountable. Then someone comes up with a simple new idea, or just a rearrangement of old ideas, that completely eliminates it.

President Trump has a unique way of doing things different to his predecessors, but what I would say is that don't underestimate his ability to take very intractable situations and shake the deck of cards and try and find a solution.