When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary, " he replied . "It's so seldom I have one.

Bill Bryson
About This Quote

When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied. "It's so seldom I have one." In this quote, Einstein was making a joke about the importance of keeping a record of your ideas. It’s true, you don’t need to keep a record of all those great ideas you’ve had in order to remember them later on.

That’s what makes a good memory so powerful. But the idea of recording your ideas is a good one – though it may be just a way for Einstein to have something to do during the long periods when he could have been doing other things.

Source: A Short History Of Nearly Everything

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