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About this quote

What does it mean?
Accepting necessity simplifies complex problems, even if identifying what is truly necessary is hard.
In plain terms
Acknowledging what must happen makes tough problems easier to solve.
What can you take from it?
Use necessity as a guide to simplify decisions.

Where it applies

  • strategic planning
  • personal crisis
  • negotiation

Putting it to work

  • identify constraints early
  • focus on unavoidable facts
  • simplify options

Questions to consider

  • How do you identify what is truly necessary?
  • Does acceptance reduce stress or limit options?

Another view

Accepting necessity may limit creative alternatives.

More from Wilhelm von Humboldt

  1. Owing to the vigorous and elastic strength of man's original power, necessity does not often require anything save the removal of oppressive bonds. From all th…

    Permalink to quote #24
  2. If we would indicate an idea which, throughout the whole course of history, has ever more and more widely extended its empire, or which, more than any other, t…

    Permalink to quote #26
  3. It is the principle of necessity towards which, as to their ultimate centre, all the ideas advanced in this essay immediately converge. In abstract theory the …

    Permalink to quote #23

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