The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
Any creator owes a debt to past creation.
—Lukas Foss (1922–2009) German-American Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Have We not made the earth as a cradle and the mountains as pegs? And We created you in pairs, and We appointed your sleep for a rest; and We appointed night for a garment, and We appointed day for a livelihood. And We have built above you seven strong ones, and We appointed a blazing lamp and have sent down out of the rain-clouds water cascading that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants, and gardens luxuriant.
—The Holy Quran Sacred Scripture of Islam
The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
Creation is a drug I can’t do without.
—Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) American Film Producer, Director
Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature’s mandates.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Writer
Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian – and at once the world becomes explicable.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly—a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
A life lived of choice is a life of conscious action. A life lived of chance is a life of unconscious creation.
—Neale Donald Walsch (b.1943) American Spiritual Writer
Consciousness is the glory of creation.
—James Broughton (1913–99) American Poet, Filmmaker
Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful so compelling that when-in a decade, a century, a millennium—we grasp it, we will say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How can we have been so blind for so long?
—John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) American Physicist
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
Choosing what you want to do, and when to do it, is an act of creation.
—Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American Author, Self-Help Writer
Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit.
—Ansel Adams (1902–84) American Photographer
when god decided to invent everything he took one reath bigger than a circustent and everything began.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can, in this state, receive no answer; Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? And since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer
Imagine spending four billion years stocking the oceans with seafood, filling the ground with fossil fuels, and drilling the bees in honey production—only to produce a race of bed-wetters!
—Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022) American Social Critic, Essayist
The finiteness, the dependency, and the insufficiency of man.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American Christian Theologian
God made man merely to hear some praise of what he’d done on those Five Days.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.
—Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French Theologian, Philosopher, Musician, Physician
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
—Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95) Anglo-Irish Children’s Hymn Writer, Poet
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