Butler Lampson Quotes

We can solve any problem by introducing an extra level of indirection.

Butler Lampson

• Problem
• Level
• Indirection

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Quotes to Explore

• You can't solve a dignity problem with military force.

  

  Rand Paul
  • Problem
  • Military
  • Dignity

• Liberals have to get more comfortable with dealing with the poor as they actually are. I admire their refusal to look down on the least among us, but at some level, that can become an excuse to never really look at the problem at all.

  

  J. D. Vance
  • Problem
  • Down
  • Poor

• I'm used to being surrounded by really smart 22-year-old students who have no problem saying that something I suggested is not a very good idea.

  

  Harold E. Varmus
  • Good
  • Problem
  • Smart

• I think the real problem is that nobody buys albums anymore, so you don't get the depth of the artists that are out today. What you get is whatever they felt is politically correct to get on there and actually make some impact. I think that's where you're losing your depth. You're only getting the very top of everything. It really bothers me.

  

  Gary Allan
  • Real
  • Today
  • Problem

• You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?

  

  Walter Murch
  • People
  • Real
  • Friends

• Bangalore now wants a person who doesn't only play politics. Bangalore needs a problem solver, and I am a problem solver. I will be the bridge between Bangalore and the Centre.

  

  Nandan Nilekani
  • Problem
  • Politics
  • Bridge

• As soon as science has solved one problem, new ones arise. This is the essence of science, and it applies, of course, also to the field of essential oils.

  

  Otto Wallach
  • Science
  • Problem
  • New

• This would not be a problem if I were driving a snowplow.

  

  Aaron Allston
  • Problem
  • Driving
  • Were

• Here's the problem the Free Syrian Army has. They really want to topple the regime in Damascus, and this is where most of the fight takes place, between Aleppo and Damascus for the Free Syrian Army.

  

  Jack Keane
  • Free
  • Problem
  • Fight

• Now that I'm more mature, in a funny way, I can even appreciate that I've bad to become more aware of my body. Since I've chosen acting as my career, I have to keep my weight down anyway-I've been used to it for years, so it's no problem. And there's nothing I can't do.

  

  Dana Hill
  • Bad
  • Career
  • Funny

• There's no question that tar sands in Canada are probably the largest source of oil available to the U.S. over a long period of time. There's as much oil in the tar sands probably as there is in Saudi Arabia. The problem is, there's a huge capital requirement to develop that.

  

  T. Boone Pickens
  • Time
  • Long
  • Question

• I think it is a universal problem that we are so often cruel to the people we love.

  

  Vicki Lawrence
  • Love
  • Problem
  • For Her

• I think the New Bohemians' inability to say no was a big part of our problem.

  

  Edie Brickell
  • Think
  • Problem
  • Say

• I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.

  

  Malcolm X
  • American
  • Man
  • Black

• We mostly feel fearful because we feel powerless. We feel powerless, I contend, because of a style of thinking that splits information in two poles that makes us lose all the operative information we need to solve the problem.

  

  Patricia Sun
  • Thinking
  • Problem
  • Style

• YouTube is a problem. It has very big traffic, but it refuses to contribute to the weight of that traffic.

  

  Xavier Niel
  • Problem
  • YouTube
  • Traffic

• It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else... The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women.

  

  Cyndi Lauper Blue Angel
  • Men
  • Thinking
  • Women

• Don’t just look at the problem that you face; look at the reason behind it

  

  Vijay Sethupathi
  • Problem
  • Reason
  • Face

• I had no need of sails to drive me, nor oars nor wheels to push me, nor rails to give me a faster road. Air is what I wanted, that was all. Air surrounds me as water surrounds the submarine boat, and in it my propellers act like the screws of a steamer. That is how I solved the problem of aviation. That is what a balloon will never do, nor will any machine that is lighter than air.

  

  Jules Verne
  • Problem
  • Drive
  • Machine

• I love pencil skirts, but I'm always looking for a top. And then I'm afraid, by myself, to match, to try colors. When I wear a dress, I know the top matches the bottom. So I can't make a mistake.

  

  Celine Dion
  • Afraid
  • Dress
  • Top

• First, forgive. Second, forget by choosing not to dwell on that which is forgiven and in the past. We have no right to keep in front of us what God has put behind Him.

  

  David Jeremiah
  • God
  • Past
  • Forget

• I'm a true opera buff. Operas make the best stories.

  

  Andrea Davis Pinkney
  • Stories
  • Opera
  • Buff

• I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

  

  Mstislav Rostropovich
  • Technique
  • Difficulty
  • No Idea

• We can solve any problem by introducing an extra level of indirection.

  

  Butler Lampson
  • Problem
  • Level
  • Indirection