Geniuses can tolerate contradictory ideas, between opposites or two incompatible subjects.

Mixing opposites creates the conditions to discover a new relationship or a new point of view.

• Aristotle believed that the person who could see resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them was a genius.
• If unlike things are really alike in some ways, perhaps, they are so in others. Underwater construction was made possible by noticing how shi...

Geniuses force relationships that enable them to see things to which others are blind.

Leonardo da Vinci forced the relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water, to make the connection that sound travels in waves.

One characteristic that stands out in geniuses is immense productivity. Thomas Edison held 1,903 patents. Bach wrote a cantata every week, regardless of sickness. Mozart produced over 600 pieces of music. Einstein published 249 papers.

Out of the vast quant...

Geniuses form more novel combinations than talented people.

They continually combine and recombine ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations.

Genius is not about having an extraordinarily high IQ, or even about being smart. It is not about finishing Mensa exercises in record time or mastering fourteen languages at the age of seven.

Geniuses think productively, not reproductively. They ask "How many different ...

Leonardo da Vinci believed you begin by learning how to restructure the problem by looking at it from many different angles.

In order to creatively solve a problem, the thinker should not use the usual approach that is based on past experience. Geniuses use several differen...