Albert Einstein had famously quoted that imagination is more important than knowledge. This makes absolute sense since imagination is required for the manifestation of novel knowledge in the first place. But is imagination all that we need? Jostein Gaarder presents a wonderful answer to this in his gripping book Sophie’s World; 

“Maybe the imagination creates what is new, but the imagination does not make the actual selection. The imagination does not “compose”. A composition- and every work of art is one- is created in a wondrous interplay between imagination and reason, or between mind and reflection. For there will always be an element of chance in the creative process. You have to turn the sheep loose before you can start to herd them.”