Man’s imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he
has observed in reality.
Imagination is not a faculty for escaping reality, but a faculty for
rearranging the elements of reality to achieve human values; it requires and
presupposes some knowledge of the elements one chooses to rearrange. An
imagination divorced from knowledge has only one product: a nightmare . . . An
imagination that replaces cognition is one of the surest ways to create
neurosis.