Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” Nemeth says. “It wakes us right up.”

By the age of 3, children from wealthier households hear, on average, about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. The ratio is reversed in households on welfare.

there simply is no way to describe the past without lying. Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction.

We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything. Several new science papers suggest that getting away is an essential habit of effective thinking. When we escape from the place we spend most of our time, the mind is suddenly made aware of all those errant ideas we'd previously suppressed. We start thinking about obscure possibilitiebsthat never would have occurred to us if we'd stayed home.

The one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know.

...new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.