When I was in Cambridge reading mathematics, I went to Amsterdam for the International Mathematics Congress. There I saw M.C. Escher's fascinating work. That inspired me to try my hand at drawing such impossibilities.
Roger PenroseRead
And these little things may not seem like much but after a while they take you off on a direction where you may be a long way off from what other people have been thinking about.
Interpretation
Small actions can lead to significant changes in perspective over time.
Roger Penrose highlights the importance of small, seemingly insignificant actions or thoughts that, over time, can lead an individual away from conventional thinking and into new territories of understanding. This suggests that embracing these 'little things' can foster unique perspectives and innovations that diverge from the mainstream.
In practice
During a motivational speech about innovation, one could reference this quote to encourage unique thinking.
When I was in Cambridge reading mathematics, I went to Amsterdam for the International Mathematics Congress. There I saw M.C. Escher's fascinating work. That inspired me to try my hand at drawing such impossibilities.
Some people take the view that the universe is simply there, and it runs along - it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.
Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.
Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor’s New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.
I believe there is something going on in a conscious being, which includes many animals, as well as ourselves, that is not a computational activity. And to be conscious at all is not a quality that a computer as such will ever possess - no matter how complicated, no matter how well it plays chess or any of these things.
Some people take the view that we happen by accident. I think that there is something much deeper, of which we have very little inkling at the moment.
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.
Danger lurks when people are dissociated and detached from their own story or feelings.
In a way, I'm always trying to do something I'm not qualified to do. So I feel that lack of qualification. And I'm scared. And I have a tendency to think things may not/probably won't work out. That's my basic mindset.
I will not be concerned at other men's not knowing me;I will be concerned at my own want of ability.
I cannot become modest; too many things burn in me; the old solutions are falling apart; nothing has been done yet with the new ones. So I begin, everywhere at once, as if I had a century ahead of me.
I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
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