The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.
Interpretation
Ignoring a problem does not make it go away, and in fact, can often make it worse.
This quote by Isaac Asimov highlights the tendency of individuals or organizations to overlook or deny the existence of a problem as a way to avoid dealing with it. While this may seem like the easiest solution in the short term, it ultimately leads to greater complications and difficulties, emphasizing the importance of confronting issues head-on instead of evading them.
In practice
During a team meeting, you might quote this to emphasize the need to address ongoing issues rather than ignoring them.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies.
Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.
Democracy cannot survive overpopulation.
Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
During the century after Newton, it was still possible for a man of unusual attainments to master all fields of scientific knowledge. But by 1800, this had become entirely impracticable.
Wealth is nothing more or less than a tool to do things with. It is like the fuel that runs the furnace or the belt that runs the wheel - only a means to an end.
Most people consider me an optimist because I laughingly state that I would take my last two dollars and buy a money belt.
Because, as we all know, itβs easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And itβs also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that weβre not so sure about.
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience?
The trite objects of human efforts-possessions, superficial success, luxury-have always seemed contemptible to me.
I'm used to people with very high IQs knowing how to recognize reality, but there's a huge human tendency where it may be instructive to think that whatever you're doing to succeed is all right.
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