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Who really said it

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere

Nobody has ever produced a source Unknown Author unknown · no located instance in Einstein’s lifetime
Disputed Free to reuse

There is no Einstein source for this — no letter, lecture, interview or manuscript, and no date. Alice Calaprice, whose collections are the standard reference for what Einstein did and did not say, carries the common form of it in The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010) in the section headed ‘Probably Not by Einstein’. It reads like a compressed rewrite of something he genuinely did say to the Saturday Evening Post in 1929 — and the real line is better.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere” Author unknown — no source has ever been produced. Not Albert Einstein; Calaprice files it under "Probably Not by Einstein".

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Albert Einstein. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

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In context

Evoking the world of Albert Einstein — theoretical physicist. Theme: "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin
Unknown — no source has ever been produced
Usual form
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Calaprice
Listed under ‘Probably Not by Einstein’ (2010)
Einstein source
None located, in any language

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. The real 1929 line, for comparison

This is not the quotation on this page. It is what Einstein actually said about imagination, to George Sylvester Viereck for The Saturday Evening Post of 26 October 1929 — a real interview, a real date, a real page. Read the two side by side and the fake one starts to sound like what it is: an aphorism engineered for a poster.

Museum of Hoaxes — the fake Einstein quotation paperweight

How we traced it

  • Start with the reference work. Calaprice’s Einstein collections sort every widely circulating line into sourced, doubtful and false. The dominant form of this saying — ‘Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere’ — appears in the 2010 Ultimate edition under ‘Probably Not by Einstein’. That is the closest thing to an official verdict a quotation can get the verdict ↗.
  • Then look for what anyone repeating it offers as evidence. Nobody supplies a date, an occasion, a correspondent or a page — it travels on posters, paperweights and social posts with the name alone. That pattern is the signature of an internet-era attribution rather than a lost citation.
  • The wording on this page is itself a variant: most instances say A to B and take you everywhere, not A to Z and get. A saying with a real source has one wording; a saying with none drifts. One honest limit on our own work: we verified the ‘Probably Not by Einstein’ listing through the published reporting rather than by inspecting the printed page ourselves, and we did not have a copy of the earlier Expanded Quotable Einstein (2000) to check, so we do not assert what that edition does or does not contain.
Public domain

The saying itself is anonymous and unsourced, so there is no Einstein estate interest in it — there is nothing of his in it to protect. Note the trap in the other direction: if you swap in the genuine 1929 sentence, you are then quoting Einstein’s own words, which are public domain in the UK and EU since 1 January 2026 but of unresolved status in the US, where the Hebrew University of Jerusalem asserts rights. Free to use here; attribute honestly, which means not to Einstein. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

There is nothing to argue with here, which is the point: no source has ever been offered, by anyone, for any wording. What is worth noticing is why this particular fake stuck.

Not Albert Einstein no source of any kind

No letter, lecture, interview, manuscript or archive number. The people who repeat it do not cite anything, and Calaprice — who catalogues the fakes as carefully as the real lines — places the common form under ‘Probably Not by Einstein’.

At least two versions in circulation drift

‘A to Z… get you everywhere’ (this page) and the more common ‘A to B… take you everywhere.’ Note that A-to-B and A-to-Z mean different things — one is a single step, the other the whole alphabet — and nobody minds, because there is no original to be faithful to.

What Einstein did say about imagination the better sentence

To George Sylvester Viereck for The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929: ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’ Real interview, real date, real page — and it says something specific rather than merely uplifting.

Merchandise, not documents the tell

Paperweights, posters, LinkedIn posts, classroom displays. A quotation whose entire documented existence is on things you can buy is a quotation with no provenance, and the commerce is what keeps it alive the paperweight ↗.

No source exists, in any wording. Calaprice’s Ultimate Quotable Einstein lists the common form under ‘Probably Not by Einstein’ — and the genuine 1929 line it echoes is on the record with a date and a page the verdict ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It flatters the reader in a very specific way: it tells anyone who has ever felt out-argued by a more rigorous colleague that they were the interesting one all along. That is a comfortable thing to hear, and it costs nothing to agree with.

It is also, on inspection, not saying much. Logic gets you from A to B and imagination takes you everywhere is a sentence with no friction in it — which is exactly why the real Einstein line does more work. His version names a limit, and then says where the limit is.

It has at least two wordings and no source. Sayings with real sources have one wording.

How to tell a poster quote from a sourced one

A sourced quotation has one stable wording. This one has at least two, differing in both halves.

A sourced quotation comes with an occasion — a letter, an interview, a lecture, a date. This one has never come with any.

A sourced Einstein quotation usually has an Einstein Archives number. This one has none.

Reference works that catalogue the fakes will list it as a fake. Calaprice does.

And the giveaway: it is smoother than the real thing. Einstein’s actual sentences tend to be slightly awkward, because they are trying to be exact rather than quotable.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Knowledge

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Fake Einstein Quotation Paperweighthoaxes.org

Traces the saying to no source at all, cites Calaprice’s ‘Probably Not by Einstein’ listing, and points to the genuine 1929 line instead.
Albert Einstein — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The sourced-quotation reference. This saying does not appear in it — not in the sourced section, not even in disputed.
Talk:Albert Einstein — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

The editors’ working discussion of which Einstein lines survive sourcing and which do not.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Einstein

Albert Einstein

1879–1955 · theoretical physicist

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) genuinely did think imagination outranked knowledge, and said so on the record more than once — which is exactly what makes this fake so durable. It is not attached to him at random. It is attached to him because it sounds like a tidier version of a real position he held, and a tidier version is what posters, mugs and paperweights want. Alice Calaprice’s collections were compiled to hold that line, and they place this saying on the wrong side of it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Author unknown. No source located in any of Einstein’s writings, interviews or correspondence. Listed under ‘Probably Not by Einstein’ in Alice Calaprice, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (Princeton University Press, 2010).

MLA (9th ed.)

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” Author unknown; no source located.

APA (7th ed.)

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. [Author unknown; no source located].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/logic-will-get-you-from-a-to-z-imagination-will-get-you

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