It's all too easy to dismiss the future. People confuse what's impossible today with what's impossible tomorrow.
George M. ChurchRead
I'll drop something for a while, a year or maybe several years, and then pick it up again. I think that's the way successful innovators work. They keep juggling ideas, keeping them in the air, in the back of their mind, to inspire them or enable new recombinations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Successful innovators often revisit ideas after a period of time, allowing for new creativity and combinations.
This quote by George M. Church highlights the non-linear nature of innovation and creativity. It suggests that successful innovators do not constantly pursue every idea actively; instead, they may let some ideas rest for a while. By doing so, they allow their subconscious to work on these ideas, which can lead to new insights and combinations when they come back to them later. This approach emphasizes the importance of patience and the ability to juggle multiple ideas in order to foster innovation.
Themes
InnovationCreativitySuccessIdeasRecombination
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about entrepreneurial strategies, one might reference this quote to illustrate how successful people manage their ideas.
More from George M. Church
All quotes →You can't just hoard your ideas inside the ivory tower. You have to get them out into the world.
George M. ChurchRead
Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.
George M. ChurchRead
We have a love affair with the idea of the 'natural,' even though we, as a species, are about as unnatural as you can imagine.
George M. ChurchRead
At some point, someone will come up with an airtight argument as to why they should have a cloned child. At that point, cloning will be acceptable.
George M. ChurchRead
Most people are excited about themselves. Personal genome will deliver for inexpensively something about science to which you can relate. Just like computers are becoming something to which you can relate. It should be even easier to relate to your own biology, and I hope that will be one of the ways we get broader literacy in science.
George M. ChurchRead
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