Richard A. Posner Quotes

How you define a problem shapes how you address it.

We cannot solve a problem until we understand the full extent of the problem.

If you don't define the problem you'll never reach a painful solution.

In business, you try to solve problems.

To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect.

Generally, you cannot solve a problem without defining the problem completely.

Solutions to problems often depend upon how they're defined.

The meaning and design of a problem seem not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly.

Never bring the problem solving stage into the decision making stage. Otherwise, you surrender yourself to the problem rather than the solution.

An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem.

It must be able to assist in devising the method of solution of problems and not merely solve them.

We only think when we are confronted with problems.

When you pass a law you don't solve the problem. You state the problem.

You can't fix a problem if you don't have the words to describe it. You can't even think about it clearly.

Usually, what I recommend to entrepreneurs is to focus on telling the problem first, about the customer or the person who has that problem.

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.

What intrigues us as a problem, and what will satisfy us as a solution, will depend upon the line we draw between what is already clear and what needs to be clarified.

Solving a problem simply means representing it so as to make the solution transparent.

You can't solve a problem until you address the problem.

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli

To arrive at the definition of the problem he must begin by finding the 'critical factor'. This is the element (or elements) in the situation that has to be changed before anything else can be changed, moved, acted upon.

The answers are always inside the problem, not outside.

I need to solve the problem. It's no different from how am I going to get my son out the door when he needs to go to school. It's a bigger version of that same type of problem.

It's easier to solve the problem more quickly with directors than with writers.

Rationality is the master lifehack which distinguishes which other lifehacks to use.