“If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first a simpler related problem.”
George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician
Mathematical Methods in Science (1977), p.164
As quoted in Baseball's Greatest Quotes (1992) by Paul Dickson; cited in "Game Day in the Majors" at the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/jrgmday.html
“If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first a simpler related problem.”
George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician
Mathematical Methods in Science (1977), p.164
“We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.”
M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
“BoP consumer problems cannot be solved with old technologies.”
C.K. Prahalad book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Source: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, 2009, p. 26
Victor Hugo book William Shakespeare
Homère est un des génies qui résolvent ce beau problème de l’art, le plus beau de tous peut-être, la peinture vraie de l’humanité obtenue par le grandissement de l’homme, c’est-à-dire la génération du réel dans l’idéal.
Part I, Book II, Chapter II, Section I
William Shakespeare (1864)
“What I cannot create, I do not understand.Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist
on his blackboard at the time of death in February 1988; from a photo in the Caltech archives http://archives.caltech.edu/pictures/1.10-29.jpg
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement (1967)
U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher
Stopped in Our Tracks, Book Two: Excerpts from U.G.'s Dialogues (2005) by K. Chandrasekhar
“Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve.”
Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist
Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 3. Opening sentence.