Quote collection
150 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving."
"An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore."
"The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds."
"We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place."
"You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future"
"Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple."
"Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. It is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organise the external world into the pieces we can then 'process'."
"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea."
"Creativity is a great motivator because it mades people interested in what they are doing."
"It's not enough to rage against the lie.. you've got to replace it with the truth."
"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all."
"Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations."
"What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think."
"Lateral thinking... is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practised and used. It is possible to acquire skill in it just as it is possible to acquire skill in mathematics."
"With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them."
"The system will always be defended by those countless people who have enough intellect to defend but not quite enough to innovate."
"Effectiveness without values is a tool without a purpose."
"The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven."
"You can't dig a different hole by digging the same one deeper."
"Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way."