Nelson Goodman Quotes

You can't do anything sensible until you know what the situation is that you're in.

It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.

In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Ask the right questions if you're to find the right answers.

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.

I want to block some common misunderstandings about 'understanding': In many of these discussions one finds a lot of fancy footwork about the word 'understanding.'

You've outlined the problem very well. Solutions are much more difficult to come by.

WHAT a person thinks is determined by HOW a person thinks.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?

As intuition grows, the need to make problems and see complications starts to dwindle.

Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution; it just needs clarity.

Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense --Reply by Dove to Aly's silent inquiry

The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.

Throughout history, one of the biggest problems is that the correct course of action is not always obvious, and the obvious course of action is not always correct.

What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.

Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between "That doesn't make sense" and "I don't understand.

Experience teaches us not to assume that the obvious is clearly understood

When I get the point, I often don't know what to do with it.

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.

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli