"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
- Albert Einstein
Source: Interview with G. S. Viereck, “What Life Means to Einstein,” Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929; reprinted in Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (Duckworth, 1930), p. 372.
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SO WHAT does this wildly popular quotation from Einstein, which is repeatedly posted, liked and shared on social media sites, actually mean? It is perhaps more relevant today than ever before - not because it is popular - but because it is widely misunderstood.
As with most popular things, there is something superficial going on. One gets the distinct impression that many people who love this quotation see it as a justification for their own lack of learning, one that is given by an authoritative and recognized 'genius' named Einstein, no less. We seem to hear a voice behind the posts, shares and likes, a snarky vindicated sort of voice that says: "Look! See, even Einstein, the genius, says that 'knowing' things isn't so important, but really that being imaginative (which, of course, I am) is the key." Unfortunately for the many (of course imaginative) folks out there who see or feel the quote in that way, it is not what Einstein is saying.
Einstein is not saying that knowledge is un-important. For Einstein, the genius, knowledge obviously is important, but he feels compelled to explain that imagination, especially in the sciences and indeed especially in the early twentieth century, when professional scholarly specialization was becoming (and has continued to become) more institutionalized, presumed and endorsed is not only misunderstood, but also undervalued, uncultivated and neglected. The more all-encompassing view, namely that one should devote and lead one's entire life as a life of learning, curiosity, questioning, discovery and indeed cultivating and developing one's imagination for the sake of that life and lifelong pursuit - this is what Einstein is talking about. Similarly, while it may sound like the sort of thing that all scientists and educators might say, in a kind of 'feel good' or unexpected 'we love imagination, too!' sort of way, what Einstein says is not what many scientists, scholars or educators have actually embraced. Einstein is making his statement in the midst of this problem, one that he faced then and that we still face today.
Knowledge and imagination work together, need each other, and they are both important, but Einstein, who relied heavily on his imagination in order to understand the universe, realizes that our more common notion that knowledge is a virtue, feels the need to emphasize that knowledge needs imagination, thrives on it. He also sees that imagination is requisite for our ability to question and challenge what we think we know or accept as knowledge.
To understand this more easily, imagine with me the following: you're in a dark tunnel and and want to walk to the other end, but it is too dark to see without a torch or flashlight. The moment you turn the light on you have begun to do something - you have begun to ask questions. In this case, it may simply be the question "what's in front of me?" So imagine that you cast the querying light and you see a large rock on the ground in front of you, if you hadn't flashed the light on it, you wouldn't have seen it and probably would have stumbled over it if you had simply started walking. The first crucial point is this:
1) It is the question that allows you to see what's in front of you, the question is the light that lets you see anything.
Now you have seen the rock, you walk past it. You are no longer shining the light on the rock because it is behind you, instead you are casting your question-light into the darkness to see what else might be there. The second point to remember is this:
2) Having questioned via your light, you were able to see, you know, but you no longer see what you know. In this sense, knowledge, like answers, are dark and limiting.
We need answers, but if we want to understand them, like the rock we've walked past in the dark tunnel, i.e., the answers that we know, then we must turn around and shine a questioning light upon them once again, which means questioning such knowledge, for it is only through questioning that we are able to see anything. Thus, answers are dark, and it is only questions that are illuminating.
So where in all of this is Imagination? This is the third point:
3) Imagination determines the quality of our questions.
Not all flashlights and torches are the same, some are dim and small, some are bright, wide and far-reaching. The better our questions, the more we can see. The more imagination we put into our questions, the brighter and more illuminating they become. Imagination formulates better questions because it impels us to ask not just about what is directly in front of us, but behind us, around us, above us and beside us. Imagination casts light into places where mere logic or previous knowledge and answers might not otherwise direct our inquiries. Our imagination wonders about everything around us, and discovers more by asking the illuminating questions that are our only means to knowledge. Thus, imagination is more important than knowledge not only because it allows us to question what we 'know', but even more so because without imagination, we wouldn't even begin the process of learning, questioning and knowing at all.
Imagination "encircles the world." Knowledge constitutes the boundaries that imagination allows us to see due to its unique ability to fuel the very quality and brightness of our illuminating questions. This, I believe, is closer to what Einstein may have meant.
The other predominant misunderstanding of this quote is a bit more difficult to ascertain at first, and lies in what those who might have a deeper understanding of imagination, or who believe they do, might be getting wrong. Many seem to think they know what imagination is and how it works. The above depiction is my best guess, but I am not certain of it, what is more certain is that we do not fully understand imagination, and certainly those who claim to understand it most by turning it into a profession understand it little if at all.
Today we have somehow (ironically) managed to replace imagination with something more akin, of all things, to knowledge in the sense of skill or know-how. We have 'workshops' and 'creative consultants', and they are suspect. Our notion of imagination today among those who capitalize upon it as a skill have 'knowledge-ified' imagination precisely in a way that is contrary to what Einstein wants us to understand.
In other words, what we currently seem to call imagination is actually a subcategory of knowledge, a 'skill' (technē) and something that can be analyzed, packaged into lessons or workshops, and then marketed and sold. We have monetized it into terms like 'creatives', which is now a profession that has usurped the notion of creativity and threatens to do the same with imagination. This industry of 'creatives' have not replaced or 'life-hacked' having a job or having to work with imaginative creativity, but instead have done the opposite, they have turned creativity into yet another form of work, another job. To double-down on this mis-achievement, such non-creative and unimaginative work is also increasingly out-sourced to AI, i.e., artificial imagination/intelligence.
By contrast, what Einstein taps into is a centuries-old insight that has been both recognized and articulated by philosophers, thinkers and artists in various ways since antiquity. It would be too exhaustive to list them all at this time (you can, however, read about many of them right here in upcoming blogs). For now we need look no further than to yet another famous (and likewise popularly quoted on social media) thinker from the 20th century, Bertrand Russell.
Russell articulates a sentiment similar to Einstein's, though it may not seem similar at first glance. He writes: "I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached" (Russell, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays, George Allen and Unwin Lmtd., 1935, p. 9).
If you cannot see the connection between what Russell says here and Einstein's quote above, then I guess you'll just have to use your imagination!
By: V. Duane J. Lacey, Ph.D.
Last Updated: Mar. 04, 2026
Bio.: https://www.so-what-philosophy.com/about-dr-lacey