Ineffective Solutions Quotes

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

The inescapable truth is: government does not have all the answers. In too many instances, government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

I have never been a believer that serious government problems are solved by reorganization or shifting around bureaucracy.

You can't just throw people at all your problems, dear.

We have perfected the art of finding problems without fixing real-world issues. We focus too much on complexity, not harm.

When people are scared, they need something done that will make them feel safe, even if it doesn't truly make them safer. Politicians naturally want to do something in response to crisis, even if that something doesn't make any sense. But unfortunately for politicians, the security measures that work are largely invisible.

Like cellulite creams or hair-loss tonics, capital punishment is one of those panaceas that isn't. Only it costs a whole lot more.

But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.

Believing that anxious thoughts and feelings can restore order to your life is like using a chain-saw to fold your laundry.

President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.

For more than a hundred years much complaint has been made of the unmethodical way in which schools are conducted, but it is only within the last thirty that any serious attempt has been made to find a remedy for this state of things. And with what result? Schools remain exactly as they were.

What's the use of inventing a better system as long as there just aren't enough folks with sense to go around?

Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work.

We’ve spent trillions of dollars on these problems and we have damn near nothing to show for it.

A revolution is interesting insofar as it avoids like the plague the plague it promised to heal.

I'd rather have that dialogue right now than only the other one, which is starting at such a basic level, that we start rearranging stuff on the Titanic, trying to be less bad with ordinary stuff.

In reality, I don't think that many of the policies we've attempted to apply to deal with it are going to have any serious effect.

Throwing money at problems never solved anything!

There's lots of things that can be solved with cash. And there's occasional things that can't be solved with cash, which become a bureaucratic nightmare for some reason, and there's no distinction between the two.

You say: "Here are persons who are lacking in morality or religion," and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need I point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the matters of morality and religion?

The first thing you ought to do when you find yourself in a hole is quit digging. . . . Instead they are looking for a bigger shovel.

You cannot make a windmill go with a pair of bellows.

Change is like putting lipstick on a bulldog. The bulldog's appearance hasn't improved, but now it's really angry.

No solution can ever be found by running in three different directions.

We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price.