Obvious Adams

(One of my favorite books)

Adams smiled. "Well," he said, "since I had that name wished upon me I have given considerable thought to that very question, and I have decided that picking out the obvious thing pre-supposes analysis, and analysis pre-supposes thinking, and I guess Professor Zueblin is right when he says that thinking is the hardest work many people ever have to do, and they don't like to do any more of it than they can help. They look for a royal road through some short cut in the form of a clever scheme or stunt, which they call the obvious thing to do; but calling it doesn't make it so. They don't gather all the facts and then analyze them before deciding what really is the obvious thing, and thereby they overlook the first and most obvious of all business principles. Nearly always that is the difference between the small business man and the big, successful one.

Robert R. Updegraff, Obvious Adams, 1916