What did Einstein mean when he said "Imagination is more important than Knowledge"?

Question

lots of good answers. I love it. Would Einstein's Theory of Relativity possible if he hasn't used his Imagination?

Answer 1

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

"I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive."

As Einstein said, knowledge is limited. But with imagination, the possibilities are endless. It is with creativity and imagination that mankind has come up with new ideas, inventions.

It is important to never stop dreaming. If we all stuck with knowledge and never dreamed of new possibilities beyond what we know, we would never move forward. It is the people who use their ideas that create and come up with new and better things, not the people who simply just stick with what they were told that never move mankind further.

Also, a lot of times it can be easier to simply read from a book or have an expert give us information, but using your imagination in a useful way can be quite a task.

Answer 2

knowledge comes from our desire to understand the unknown. Creativity and "imagination" helps us develop these ideas. Without imagination, the quest for knowledge and or truths no longer exist. Imagination helps us understand new concepts through novelty. Knowledge is the end product of all this. If only knowledge existed, then the information use would die at the initial understanding of the concept due to the lack of our imagination for finding other uses and applications.

Answer 3

You can KNOW a lot of things, from books and from school, but unless you can put that knowledge to work using your imagination, what's the point of having knowledge?

Answer 4

Imagination is an act of the individual unique creativity of something that he or she thought of only, that if one brings to reality for others to see and enjoy or can become meaningful to society. When Knowledge is something that is a unique creativity of someone else's thoughts and reality that is now already in existence for others to use or enjoy.

Answer 5

I think it is this: knowledge can be taught but imagination cannot. once you have the imagination, some bright ideas might come up to you. if your knowledge is enough, you are likely to be an inventor or a scientist. if you just have knowledge but no imagination, you have nowhere to use it, the knowledge means nothing to you.

Answer 6

He said that cos we know our imagination takes precedence over our thoughts. without imagining how can we even get any good ideas. Knowledge comes later. knowledge comes with education and experience. imagination is basic.

Answer 7

Obvious. Knowledge is the understanding and remembering things already known.

Science is the investigation of the unknown. For that you need imagination.

Answer 8

I don't know what he meant.
What I imagine he meant is:
If we have knowledge we only know what other people have already told us or what we have observed. With imagination you can take discovery further.
I would add myself that imagination will work a lot better with a good background knowledge.

Answer 9

A computer knows a lot of things, but it's nothing when compared with a human's ability to imagine new things that no one before could ever know.

Answer 10

Imagination opens the mind to endless possibilities while knowledge is finite.