Howard Aiken Quotes

If something is a problem, it's all right to admit it.

No problem exists in isolation, one must first reduce it to its basic components, then tackle each component in turn.

The simple questions are always the hardest ones.

Our tendency to create heroes rarely jibes with the reality that most nontrivial problems require collective solutions.

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

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

Our problems are technical, not political

Often, problems are knots with many strands, and looking at those strands can make a problem seem different.

Not all complex problems have easy solutions; so says science (so warns science.)

Ordinarily when a man in difficulty turns to prayer, he has already tried every other means of escape.

We have the same problem as everyone else: It's very hard to predict the future.

Given that we cannot know all the elements in a problem, we never can solve it.

A difficulty for every solution.

We fail when we try to give simple answers to complicated problems.

There are still many, many uncertainties, challenges and difficulties in Afghanistan. But we have to enable the Afghans to manage those challenges themselves. We cannot solve all the problems for the Afghans.

If there is a remedy or a cure, a solution to a problem or difficulty, why worry?

Unfortunately, simplistic framing of problems leads to simplistic answers.

To every problem, there is a most simple solution.

If a problem is too difficult to solve, one cannot claim that it is solved by pointing at all the efforts made to solve it.

Large companies are very good at solving extremely complex problems in a globally optimal way.

Impossible situations are our specialty.

There are problems that just end up being really hard and by definition the only problems that come to my desk are the ones that nobody else can solve.

Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.

When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.

The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.