Once a new idea springs into existence, it cannot be unthought. There is a sense of immortality in a new idea.
Man owes his success to his creativity. No one doubts the need for it. It is most useful in good times and essential in bad.
The concept of logical thinking is selection and this is brought about by the processes of acceptance and rejection. Rejection is the basis of logical thinking.
Our existing thinking habits are excellent, just as the rear wheels of a motor car are excellent, but not enough...
We may have a perfectly adequate way of doing something, but that does not mean there cannot be a better way. So we set out to find an alternative way. This is the basis of any improvement that is not fault correction or problem solving.
Creativity can be learned like basketball, which does not mean we will all be NBA stars.
It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.
What is urgent will always take precedence over what is important.
To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.
Only the human brain can deliberately change perceptions, change patterns, invent concepts and tolerate ambiguity.
In the art world, creativity involves aesthetic sensibility, emotional resonance and a gift for expression.
They enjoy thinking. They enjoy being creative. They enjoy having ideas. Most people do not enjoy thinking at all.
Creativity involves provocation, exploration and risk taking. Creativity involves “thought experiments.” You cannot tell in advance how the experiment is going to turn out. But you want to be able to carry out the experiment.
Instead of waiting for our attention to be pulled towards something unusual, we can set out frameworks for ‘directing’ our attention in a conscious manner.
Everything can be simplified. With enough simplification and enough patience on the part of the parent, anything can be simplified to the point that even very young children can begin to understand it.
A problem is simply the difference between what one has and what one wants.
Real life, however, is very different from school sums. There is usually more than one answer. Some answers are much better than others: they cost less, are more reliable or are more easy to implement. There is no reason at all for supposing that the first answer has to be the best one.
No amount of excellence on the part of a computer can lead to the solution of a problem if the problem has been incorrectly defined by the programmer. In.
That wasn’t a mistake, was ’a fully justified venture which, for reasons beyond your control, did not work.
Thinking is the ultimate human resource.
In an atomic pile an explosion is prevented by inserting rods of cadmium, which mop up the particles that are shooting around. In this way the energy in the pile is controlled. If there are too many rods, the chain reaction stops and the pile can no longer produce any energy. People who are unable to appreciate new ideas are like the rods: some of them are necessary to prevent a destructive explosion, but too many make it impossible for the pile to produce any energy.