An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.

One genuinely new thought outweighs any amount of careful custody of old ones. Repeating what is already known keeps a body of knowledge alive but does not add to it, and most of what fills a working life is repetition. The rare contribution is the sentence nobody had put in that order before.

You do not need a discovery. Ask, of whatever you are working on, where you are only assembling other people’s conclusions and what you actually think that they do not say. Write that down in your own words, even briefly, even if it is only true for your corner of the world.