A Quote by Donald Barthelme

The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions. — © Donald Barthelme
The task is not so much to solve problems as to propose questions.
Most people will solve the problems they know how to solve. Roughly speaking they will solve B+ problems instead of A+ problems. A+ problems are high impact problems for your company but they're difficult problems.
Internationally, I propose the radical step of not trying to solve complex political problems with 1,000lb bombs; domestically, I propose they start addressing inequality by paying reparations for slavery. I'm well aware that in a society where war and discrimination are now almost entirely normalised, both options sound like madness.
No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie beyond his competence. ... Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.
And I've come to the place where I believe that there's no way to solve these problems, these issues - there's nothing that we can do that will solve the problems that we have and keep the peace, unless we solve it through God, unless we solve it in being our highest self. And that's a pretty tall order.
Shakespeare did not consider himself the legislator of mankind. He faithfully records man's problems and does not evidently propose to solve them.
A small-state world would not only solve the problems of social brutality and war; it would solve the problems of oppression and tyranny. It would solve all problems arising from power.
Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.
To receive spiritual direction is to recognize that God does not solve our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease.
I tended to write poems about both social and spiritual problems, and some problems one doesn't really want to solve, and so the problems themselves are solved. You certainly don't want to solve problems in poems that haven't been solved in the world.
Saying that government is not the way to solve problems is not saying that humanity cannot solve its problems. What I've finally learned is this: Despite the obstacles created by governments, voluntary networks of private individuals - through voluntary exchange - solve all sorts of challenges.
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.
If we want to raise young adults who know how to solve problems, we must let them have problems to solve while they are still adolescents.
Most zombie stories, the problems they solve are not the actual zombies. The problems they solve are the human interactions.
It's much more interesting to watch someone who is ill-equipped to solve their problem fight to solve their problem than wallow in the knowledge that they're ill-equipped to solve their problems.
The book Dynamic Programming by Richard Bellman is an important, pioneering work in which a group of problems is collected together at the end of some chapters under the heading "Exercises and Research Problems," with extremely trivial questions appearing in the midst of deep, unsolved problems. It is rumored that someone once asked Dr. Bellman how to tell the exercises apart from the research problems, and he replied: "If you can solve it, it is an exercise; otherwise it's a research problem."
Solving the population problem is not going to solve the problems of racism, of sexism, of religious intolerance, of war, of gross economic inequality. But if you don't solve the population problem, you're not going to solve any of those problems. Whatever problem you're interested in, you're not going to solve it unless you also solve the population problem. Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause without population control.
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