The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
In human affairs the solution to every problem contains within it the seeds of a new problem.
No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them -- campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Temporary solutions often become permanent problems.
Everything can look good in theory and in practice it all falls apart.
I'll go to my grave saying a gimmick is not good public policy.
Rather than recognising the challenges of a fast-changing society require sometimes complex responses, that we live in a world of trade-offs, that easy answers are usually false answers, we have seen the rise of the simplifiers.
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
I would say don't take advice from people like me who have gotten very lucky. We're very biased. You know, like Taylor Swift telling you to follow your dreams is like a lottery winner telling you, 'Liquidize your assets; buy Powerball tickets - it works!'
At a certain point, people in Panama thought that everything was going to be solved as soon as Noriega was gone. Of course, the disappointment was huge.
Impatience translates itself into a desire to have something immediate done about it all, and, as is generally the case with impatience, resolves itself in the easiest way that lies ready to hand.
Patched-up diplomatic solutions designed to answer the needs of the moment rarely last, and as they unravel they can actually make things worse.
Grand bargains area a bad idea. Grand bargains are usually sought by people who do not want to make any progress.
The West is very impatient. You want overnight change.
Doves that are too heavily armed don't fly.
One generation's reform becomes the next generation's problem.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
The problem was Le Corbusier was a genius and an enormous artist, but he tried to resolve problems to which there is no solution. So the idea to demolish the centre of Paris in order to adapt it to the car - he drew it! - is something not even the most bloody dictators conceived.
If you over-react to a crisis legislatively it generally ends in disaster.
It's been a pattern in my life - when I get in trouble, I try to get out of it, since I was little.
The world is sick of big IT things that don't work.
Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him make you ill. In fact, in 20% of medical cases we do apparently have that going on. But in the case of thought, its far over 20%.
Most government officials are rushing headlong to solve the problems of 50 years ago, with their ears assailed by the sound of snails whizzing by.
