Victor Hugo once said that intelligence it's your wife, while imagination is your mistress. I disagree, though not simply on moral grounds. I disagree with the disassociation between how we ought to think and how we prefer to think. Hugo's metaphor has in it a dutiful mode of seeing the world, and a more enjoyable, exciting, pleasing mode. I have not found this distinction to be true in my life. I find they are, indeed, separate things, and certainly one is more exciting than the other, but I find I require them both. One is not a pleasure any more than the other is a duty.
So here is many edit of Hugo's sentiment: intelligence is the ground we stand on, imagination is the air we breathe. I would no more think that I could build a city on air, than think I could breathe dirt. But I find I need them both to live. The ground allows me to build, the air allows me to fly.
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