The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas.
It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.
What the joke displays is a switch in perception. This is important in changing the way we think.
Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
I must say, I don't feel very qualified to be a pop star. I feel very awkward at times in the role.
People should realize we're jerks just like them.
I think there is a danger with young people of being dependent in the sense that they don't acquire any identity or self-image of themselves as thinkers.
My thinking was taught to tribes in South Africa like the Zulus and Xhosas. At the time there were about 210 fights breaking out among them every month, but after they listened to my lessons, this fell to just four.
Teaching thinking for just five hours to unemployed youngsters increased employment 500 percent.
It's always amazed me how little attention philosophers, psychologists, or anyone else actually has paid to humor.
Humor is probably the most significant characteristics of the human mind. Far more significant than reason. In fact, reason is actually a very cheap commodity.
I do a great deal of work with young children, and if you give a child a problem, he may come up with a highly original solution, because he doesn't have the established route to it.
A painter may be looking at the world in a way which is very different from everyone else. If he's a craftsman, he can get other people to see the world through his eyes, and so he enlarges our vision, perception, and there's great value in that.
