It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
With our thoughts we shape the world.
—Buddhist Teaching
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
If you are going to be original, you are going to be wrong a lot.
—Anonymous
We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
Things do not change, we change.
—Kalidasa Indian Sanskrit Poet, Dramatist
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
—Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Levis
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.
—Etty Hillesum (1914–43) Jewish Diarist
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
—Scott Adams (b.1957) American Cartoonist
That which builds is better than that which is built.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
An inventor a man who looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world.
—Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Scottish-American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn’t need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas.
—Abe Tannenbaum (1922–2009) American Architect
This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
The whole difference between construction and creation is this; that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral personality whether they apply themselves to good things or to bad. And if this is lacking, no teacher can supply it or take its place.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
I will master something, then the creativity will come.
—Japanese Proverb
Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
—Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) American Film Producer, Director
I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect.
—Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) American Author
The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
The mind’s direction is more important than its progress.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The creative person, the person who moves from an irrational source of power, has to face the fact that this power antagonizes. Under all the superficial praise of the “creative” is the desire to kill. It is the old war between the mystic and the nonmystic, a war to the death.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
—Anna Freud (1895–1982) Austrian-British Child Psychoanalyst
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