Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge

This is one of Einstein's best-documented quotes, drawn from his October 26, 1929 interview with journalist George Sylvester Viereck, published in The Saturday Evening Post as "What Life Means to Einstein." When Viereck asked whether Einstein trusted imagination over knowledge, Einstein replied: "I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." The interview was later reprinted in Viereck's 1930 book Glimpses of the Great, providing two independent primary sources.