In some published transcripts or quotations of this speech a variant of this statement appears immediately before the quote by Churchill below, but was not said during Reagan's televised address on (27 October 1964). Though he did make variations of the speech elsewhere it is unclear exactly when and where he may have said used these precise words:
: They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
Later variant: For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.
:* California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech (5 January 1967) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
“Simple minds respond to simple answers.”
Source: Shadows Linger (1984), Chapter 33, “Juniper: The Encounter” (p. 370)
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Glen Cook 205
American fiction writer 1944Related quotes
“The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds.”
Ackoff (2007) as cited in: Stefan Stern (2009) "Fond farewell to a brilliant thinker". in: Financial Times, November 9, 2009.
2000s
Context: The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
Variant: Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”
Source: Love Is a Mix Tape
“When the solution is simple, God is answering.”
“But whathappened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”
Source: Atonement
“Sometimes a simple question could have a complicated answer.”
Source: Blue-Eyed Devil