The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Water will wears away rock. (Be flexible)
—Chinese Proverb
True creativity often starts where language ends.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
—Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) American Film Producer, Director
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee … gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.
—A. A. Milne (1882–1956) British Humorist, Playwright, Children’s Writer
From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
—Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Levis
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
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) Dutch Diarist, Holocaust Victim
The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
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
Is not the tremendous strength in men of the impulse to creative work in every field precisely due to their feeling of playing a relatively small part in the creation of living beings, which constantly impels them to an overcompensation in achievement?
—Karen Horney (1885–1952) German-born American Psychoanalyst
The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss Psychologist
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.
—Brian Aldiss (1925–2017) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer
Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
—Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American Spy Novelist
Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
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
It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
That which builds is better than that which is built.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
As long as you’re going to think anyway, think big.
—Donald Trump (b.1946) American Businessperson, Head of State
If you are going to be original, you are going to be wrong a lot.
—Anonymous
We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything—and one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the “productive” man a yet higher species.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the great harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
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-born American Inventor, Engineer, Academic
Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social 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
I have asked a lot of my emotions—one hundred and twenty stories. The price was high, right up with Kipling, because there was one little drop of something, not blood, not a tear, not my seed, but me more intimately than these, in every story, it was the extra I had. Now it has gone and I am just like you now.
—Unknown
No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.
—Michael Jordan (b.1963) American Sportsperson, Businessperson
Creativity and love come from the same source.
—Laurens van der Post (1906–96) South African-born British Political leader, Author, Educator, Journalist, Humanitarian
A problem defined is half solved.
—John Dewey (1859–1952) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Educator
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Everything changes but change itself. Everything flows and nothing remains the same…You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
—John Lubbock (1834–1913) English Politician, Biologist
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, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
—Arthur Koestler (1905–83) British Writer, Journalist, Political Refugee
It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.
—Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) Peruvian-born American Anthropologist, Author
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