Creative Blocks Quotes

The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around ... The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating, are in fact the growing edges. We see these opportunities the instant we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance. ~ Stephen Nachmanovitch

I think a lot of times when people have "creative blocks" and I know my share of friends do as well if they're at just some stuck point. They're not sure what to do with their lives or their writing or their photography or their filmmaking or whatever it is that they're doing. I think the best advice is you have to change your life up completely; to go on a trip, to go spend a year being of service. Be willing to take some major drastic action to get you out of your comfort zone and go inside, not outside. ~ Rainn Wilson

Smash creative blocks. Change the problem or sneak up on it from a different direction. Try something fresh - a new way with an old theme, a different point of view, unusual tool. ~ Nita Leland

I think creative blocks come from people's life journeys. If you don't know who you are or what you're about or what you believe in it's really pretty impossible to be creative. ~ Rainn Wilson

Take the next little step-the smaller you make it, the more likely you'll take it.. ~ Jill Badonsky

The ability of human beings to be creative depends fundamentally on the health and well-being of our biosphere, the few kilometres of air, water, and soil that surround our planet like the skin of an apple. Quite simply, they are the physical and spiritual bases of our lives, and the only source of materials and tools ... ~ Freeman Patterson

. The whole idea of heaven and hell is a perfect illustration of just how the core of Christian doctrine is antithetical to reason, rationality and even life. It elevates ignorance and non-productivity and suppresses creative and innovative thought. One competent scientist is worth more than a thousand evangelists. ~ Al Stefanelli

I was beginning to feel that there would never be another American uprising, that the energy was gone, and I have some reasons to think that might be true. I like to point out that the crime rate in America has been declining for a long time, and in my opinion it's because Americans don't even have enough gumption to commit crimes anymore: the creative aspect of crime has fallen into decay. As for the uprising that takes a principled stand against violence, hats off to them, I admire the idealism, but I don't think it's going to accomplish much. ~ Hakim Bey

I find that creative streak I think often leads in programmers to be good predictors of where culture as a whole is going to go. And that is where I think I've tried over the years to in some ways use my customers as a filter or a predictor of where technology as a whole is going to go. Or where the world as a whole is going to go. ~ Tim O'Reilly

Most creative thing I've ever done? Got somebody pregnant. ~ Tracy Morgan

Perspective: it is the creativity we possess, the beliefs we follow and the lessons we learn. ~ Alexis Hurley

Love of self and love of life connects us with the prosperity of the Universe. Self-love creates self-expression and allows us to be creative in deeply fulfilling ways. ~ Louise Hay

Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

What I am going to propose is that you write a novel.
As you know, the practical advantages of being able to write out your thoughts fluently are very great. For one thing, when you are used to writing them out, they present themselves, one after another. When you are not used to writing them out, they mill around among themselves usually and you see nothing but heads and tails of them when you sit down to get them on paper. I know from my own experience that the first two or three hours of every exam I ever took were spent simply getting my pen warmed up, and by then it was too late. ~ Ted Hughes

Tortured Soul 101: The depth of despair one experiences during the creative process (as experienced say, in an abysmally blank page or canvas) is directly proportional to the scope and power of the work that emerges when it breaks. ~ F.T. McKinstry

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. ~ James A. Michener

Don't tense up no matter what, for you only close off creative power when you do. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

The vast silence of Buddha overtakes
and overrules the oncoming roar
of tragic life that fills alleys and avenues;
it blocks the way of pedicabs, police, convoys. ~ Denise Levertov

Consuming the content and culture of creatives does not make one a creative. Creating makes a creative. ~ Ryan Lilly

Now the bigots have to get creative. Good luck coming up with slurs for Chechens. Go back where you came from, Ushanka head. ~ Aasif Mandvi

What you wear for work should be comfortable and empowering. If you're working in business, your outfit should mean business. If I go to meet somebody about an acting job, or something creative, then I'll be in my jeans. For me, overdressing is my biggest fear. ~ Twiggy

It does not matter whether you paint, sculpt, or make shoes, whether you are a gardener, a farmer, a fisherman, a carpenter-it does not matter. What matters is, are you putting your very soul into what you are creating? Then your creative products have something of the quality of divine. ~ Rajneesh

You have the capacity to change the plot line of your life, even if you've been acting from the same script since before you can remember. No matter what has happened up to this point, you have the right and the capacity to be happy. You are an innately creative being, capable of writing a love story worth living. ~ David Simon

I would have government defend the life and property of all citizens equally; protect all willing exchange; suppress and penalize all fraud, all misrepresentation, all violence, all predatory practices; invoke a common justice under law; and keep the records incidental to these functions. Even this is a bigger assignment than governments, generally, have proven capable of. Let governments do these things and do them well. Leave all else to men in free and creative effort. ~ Leonard Read

Authenticity is our natural state of being. The authentic self is a state of being where we are centered, creative, adaptive, and inspired. ~ Henna Inam

Innovation is the lifeblood of an organization. Knowing how to lead and work with creative people requires knowledge and action that often goes against the typical organizational structure. Protect unusual people from bureaucracy and legalism typical of organizations. ~ Max De Pree

The human mind is generative, creative, proactive, and reflective -- not just reactive. ~ Albert Bandura

Ideation is not a synonym for innovation, conformity is not its simple antonym, and innovation is not the automatic consequence of "creative thinking.". ~ Theodore Levitt

The psychic depths are nature, and nature is creative life. ~ Carl Jung

I'd be more likely to go for somebody who is like me. Well, I like creative people, so whatever that means ... Yeah, authentic and creative. ~ Zooey Deschanel

It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry
if they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere, how to keep on working until the work is done. Woody Allen famously declared that "eighty percent of success is showing up." NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) teaches kids how to show up again and again. ~ Jonah Lehrer

I just see in pop culture, music, visual art, books, etc., a real hunger for the new and different, and I think that's amazing. Satisfying this hunger is part of the responsibility of a creative person. ~ Porochista Khakpour

I like to believe most people's natural state is to be creative. It definitely was when we were kids, when being spontaneously and joyfully creative was just our default setting. As we grow we learn to evaluate and judge, to navigate the world with some discretion, and then we turn on ourselves. Creating can't just be for the sake of creating anymore. It has to be good, or it has to mean something. We get scared out of our wits by the possibility of someone rejecting our creation. ~ Jeff Tweedy

There's room for everybody on the planet to be creative and conscious if you are your own person. If you're trying to be like somebody else, then there is isn't. ~ Tori Amos

The creative mind doesn't have to have the whole pattern-it can have just a little piece and be able to envision the whole picture in completion. ~ Arthur Fry

If the ecological community is ever achieved in practice, social life will yield a sensitive development of human and natural diversity, falling together into a well balanced, harmonious whole. Ranging from community through region to entire continents, we will see a colorful differentiation of human groups and ecosystems, each developing its unique potentialities and exposing members of the community to a wide spectrum of economic, cultural and behavioral stimuli. Falling within our purview will be an exciting, often dramatic, variety of communal forms - here marked by architectural and industrial adaptations to semi-arid ecosystems, there to grasslands, elsewhere by adaptation to forested areas. We will witness a creative interplay between individual and group , community and environment, humanity and nature. The cast of mind that today organizes differences among humans and other lifeforms along hierarchical lines, defining the external in terms of its "superiority" or "inferiority," will give way to an outlook that deals with diversity in an ecological manner. Differences among people will be respected, indeed fostered, as elements that enrich the unity of experience and phenomena. The traditional relationship which pits subject against object will be altered qualitatively; the "external," the "different," the "other" will be conceived of as individual parts of a whole all the richer because of its complexity. This sense of unity will reflect the harmonization of interest ~ Murray Bookchin

We learn to create; we create to improve life and to teach. Creative ideas and creating are the essence of life. ~ Debasish Mridha

In the third epoch the divinity of man's creative nature is finally revealed and divine power becomes human power. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

The nation is bound together by its creative artists and not by parallel lines of rusting steel. ~ Pierre Berton

After years of telling corporate citizens to 'trust the system,' many companies must relearn instead to trust their people - and encourage their people to use neglected creative capacities in order to tap the most potent economic stimulus of all: idea power. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

There is no sadness and no cruelty in that gaze; it is a gaze without adjectives, it is only, completely, a gaze which neither judges you nor appeals to you; it posits you, implicates you; makes you exist. But this creative gesture is endless; you keep on being born, you are sustained, carried to the end of a movement which is one of infinite origin, source, and which appears in an eternal state of suspension. ~ Roland Barthes

Virtually any pointed edifice is considered a candidate for alien engineering. After all, how could the Egyptians or Mayans have possibly stacked up stone blocks into pyramids? ~ Seth Shostak

Work on psychological blocks like shame and guilt - they falsely color your reality. ~ Deepak Chopra

Leaders are creators. They bring their visions to fruitition through the creative process. ~ Phil Pringle

Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going. ~ Laurence J. Peter

You don't sit around looking for reasons to do the right thing; it's the bad decisions that require creative reasoning. ~ Andy Stanley

The necessary transformation of which I speak and of which my presidency will be a part is built on turning creative possibilities into live realities for all our people. ~ Michael D. Higgins

How about that McDonald's two blocks from Ground Zero? That's killed more people than the 19 hijackers. ~ Michael Moore

The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster. ~ Ansel Adams

What is going to happen to the Aurorans?"
"They are prisoners of war," Albion said. "I should imagine they will be set to work at the base of the Spire."
Grimm tightened his jaw. "No, sir."
"No?"
"No, sir," Grimm said. "I've seen that place. You might as well tie a noose around their necks and stand them on blocks of ice, if you want them to die a slow death. It will be cleaner."
"I'm not sure why this concerns you, Captain," Albion said.
"Because they surrendered to me," Grimm said. "They gave me their parole, sir. They could have fought on with no real chance of victory, and it would have been bloody. But that surrender saved blood and lives of Albions and Aurorans alike. I will not see Captain Castillo repaid with such churlish treatment. ~ Jim Butcher

A team of researchers, led by Ravi Mehta of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, found that those exposed to moderate noise levels (seventy decibels) performed better on a creative-thinking exam than those exposed to either high levels of noise or complete silence. Moderate noise, Mehta believes, allows us to enter "a state of distracted, or diffused, focus." Again, the ideal state for creative breakthroughs. ~ Eric Weiner

They now endure incessant cultural appropriation by a majority society in the United States that celebrates an idealized American Indian but ignores reservation life - the economic blight and marginalization of what are, in effect, national internment zones, exacerbated by federal inattention and mismanagement. In Indian country there are also thriving cultural traditions and creative genius, but these often receive little more recognition than the problems. - ~ T. J. Stiles