Indeed, the central thesis of our book — a simple yet nonstandard idea — is that the spotting of analogies pervades every moment of our thought, thus constituting thought’s core.

Thinking is common to all.

If categorization is central to thinking, then what mechanism carries it out? Analogy is the answer.

For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.

We claim that cognition takes place thanks to a constant flow of categorizations, and that at the base of it all is found, in contrast to classification (which aims to put all things into fixed and rigid mental boxes), the phenomenon of categorization through analogy-making, which endows human thinking with its remarkable fluidity.

We should have great respect for what seem like the most mundane of analogies, for when they are examined, they often can be seen to have sprung from, and to reveal, the deepest roots of human cognition.

The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language.

We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do.

Deep analogical thinking is the practice of recognizing conceptual similarities in multiple domains or scenarios that may seem to have little in common on the surface. It is a powerful tool for solving wicked problems, and Kepler was an analogy addict, so Gentner is naturally very fond of him.

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.” — HENRY DAVID THOREAU

And one of my firmest conclusions is that we always think by seeking and drawing parallels to things we know from our past, and that we therefore communicate best when we exploit examples, analogies, and metaphors galore, when we avoid abstract generalities, when we use very down-to-earth, concrete, and simple language, and when we talk directly about our own experience.

We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among whom we live.

Such concepts, be they concrete or abstract, are selectively mobilized instant by instant, and nearly always without any awareness on our part, and it is this ceaseless activity that allows us to build up mental representations of situations we are in, to have complex feelings about them, and to have run-of-the-mill as well as more exalted thoughts. No thought can be formed that isn’t informed by the past; or, more precisely, we think only thanks to analogies that link our present to our past.

Everybody’s ideas seem obvious to them.