Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It’s not that there’s something new in our way of thinking – it’s that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.

I consider the fact that thousands of children die each day from starvation and a lack of medicine a crisis for humanity and a problem we must collectively attempt to solve.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Once I get on a puzzle, I can’t get off.

I’m of the school of thought where if you can’t sort something out for yourself then no one can help you.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that’s what a number of us are trying to do.

I don’t know that my schooling was conducive to wild ideas and creativity, but it gave me discipline, drive. They taught me how to think. I really know how to think.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

But your questions, which are unanswerable without exception, all spring from the same erroneous thinking.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Learn to think continentally.

The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

At home, we must reject the mistaken notion – a notion that has dominated too much of the public dialogue for too long – that ever bigger Government is the answer to every problem.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

The major networks, the cable networks, they’re being prosecutors. They’re judges and jurors and executioners. Well, c’mon, that’s ridiculous. But they’re doing it.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

I think a lot of things that are the norm, that are very systematic, don’t work.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Solutions are not the answer.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.