Thomas Sowell Quotes

Additional problems are the offspring of poor solutions.

A fool can throw a stone in a pond that 100 wise men can not get out.

If you don’t understand how problems came to be, how are you going to know how to fix them?

The great problem now is that we don’t know what to do.

The cure can be worse than the illness

My experience in government is there is a whole host of unintended consequences you have to think through. I can't un-know that, I find it harder now to offer simple solutions.

Our problems are technical, not political

Education will not cure all the problems of society, but without it no cure for any problem is possible.

If only we could see in advance all the harm that can come from the good we think we are doing.

... good intentions are not sufficient to solve our problems.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.

In the life of a nation, few ideas are more dangerous than good solutions to the wrong problems.

To solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name.

I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth.

The definition of the problem, rather than its solution, will be the scarce resource in the future.

The Problem is never the problem! It is only a symptom of something much deeper.

Point out the problems, as long as you have a solution. I don't like critics who aren't doers themselves.

We shall find the answer when we examine the problem, the problem is never apart from the answer, the problem IS the answer, understanding the problem dissolves the problem.

To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.

Harm seek, harm find.

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli

Problem solving, and I don't mean algebra, seems to be my life's work. Maybe it's everyone's life's work.

Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.

It's only by thinking even more crazily than philosophers do that you can solve their problems.