Ideas - Quotes
Ideas are like seeds: they are abundant, and most of them never grow into anything. Also, ideas are seldom original. Ask several independent groups to brainstorm on the same topic at the same time, and you will likely get many of the same ideas. This is not a limitation of brainstorming; it is true of all creation. Because everything arises from steps, not leaps, most things are invented in several places simultaneously when different people walk the same path, each unaware of the others.
Consuming information that conforms to our ideas of the world is easy and pleasurable; consuming information that challenges us to think in new ways or question our assumptions is frustrating and difficult.
By definition, a world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there's nothing to learn. If personalization is too acute, it could prevent us from coming into contact with the mind-blowing, preconception-shattering experiences and ideas that change how we think about the world and ourselves.
Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don`t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It`s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change. Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.
The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don`t work, you must throw them away. Don`t waste any neurons on what doesn`t work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.
The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven`t you?
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don`t believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject.
Inspired ideas are not to be repeated. They quickly wear out and lose their magic.
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.