"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
About this Quote
The subtext is an argument about power and freedom. Knowledge is socially legible; it fits into credentials, textbooks, institutions. Imagination is unruly. It’s the ability to step outside the authorized map and sketch a new one, even if it looks absurd at first. That’s not romantic anti-intellectualism; it’s a claim about how scientific revolutions actually happen. Relativity didn’t emerge from memorizing Newton harder. It came from thought experiments, from daring to treat time and space as variables rather than furniture.
Context matters: Einstein worked in an era where physics was both triumphalist and cracking at the seams, with classical certainty giving way to quantum weirdness and cosmic scale. The quote flatters creativity, yes, but it also disciplines it. Imagination isn’t daydreaming; it’s structured audacity. He’s saying the future belongs to people who can move between rigor and play, who can respect what we know without letting it become a prison.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | "Imagination is more important than knowledge." — Albert Einstein; cited from interview "What Life Means to Einstein," Saturday Evening Post, 1929 (original interview contains the fuller passage). |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Einstein, Albert. (2026, January 17). Imagination is more important than knowledge. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/imagination-is-more-important-than-knowledge-25291/
Chicago Style
Einstein, Albert. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/imagination-is-more-important-than-knowledge-25291/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/imagination-is-more-important-than-knowledge-25291/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







