Creativity Quotes

My understanding of God is an experience. God is. That's all I know. In the Biblical tradition, it would be expressed as, "Be still and know that I am God." God is the "I am" energy. Something huge is at play here - cosmic creativity, consciousness, God, whatever you want to call it. I do believe that it's a guided ride. We're on a guided tour of the universe. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

What benefit will I get if I know one book from cover to cover? - Isn't this filling my mind with the ideas of others and losing creativity?! ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

The great challenge is how to marry creativity with discipline so that discipline amplifies creativity without destroying it. ~ Andy Stanley

I just close my eyes and act like I'm a 3-year-old. I try to get as close to a childlike level as possible because we were all artists back then. So you just close your eyes and think back to when you were as young as you can remember and had the least barriers to your creativity. ~ Kanye West

They say certain people aren't good soldiers because if they're in a foxhole all night - you know, if you're creative and smart, you're thinking about all the different ways someone is going to blow your head off. But if you're not that smart, you're just like chilling out. And I feel like that in life. I'm just in the foxhole all fucking day thinking about everything that's going to go wrong in every possible way. ~ Judd Apatow

It isn't enough to pick a path - you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, "explored the neighborhood." The key point here is that even if you decide you're in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place. ~ Ed Catmull

She has given me a way out. ~ Alison Bechdel

We create our lives with words. ~ Harriet Showman

Nothing prompts creativity like poverty, a feeling of hopelessness, and a bit of panic. ~ Catherine Tate

No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde, for most fashion people, creativity is quite taboo. ~ Riccardo Tisci

With poetry and writing, the question isn't "do you know the right words?".
The real question is, "can you make words from the unwordable, chisel blocks of raw silence into shapes and touch our souls? ~ Jacob Nordby

A learning mind has more dots to connect for sparking innovation. ~ Pearl Zhu

When we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we're more likely to reach out to others for help. ~ Jane McGonigal

With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty). But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures "nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing. ~ Wassily Kandinsky

A Tragic Honesty, like the Ian Hamilton biography of Lowell that I read recently, is a sad and occasionally terrifying account of how creativity can be simultaneously fragile and self-destructive; it also made me grateful that I am writing now, when the antidepressants are better, and we all drink less. Stories about contemporary writers being taken away in straitjackets are thin on the ground - or no one tells them to me, anyway - but it seemed to happen to Lowell and Yates all the time; there are ten separate page references under 'breakdowns' in the index of A Tragic Honesty. ~ Nick Hornby

One of the things that kept me out of trouble was doing something creative - creativity can't be judged. ~ Beyonce Knowles

Truly creative people care little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. ~ Alan Cohen

I'm encouraging other people, whether they're professionals or not, to use their creativity to express themselves, to get a conversation going, to get the party started, really. ~ Madonna Ciccone

I did go to a performing arts school, so that facilitated my creativity, though I ended up going in a more musical direction. ~ Alycia Debnam Carey

Giving these students, teenagers, any form of power over the use of their own words, allowing them to turn everyday raw material into some form of beauty, is a gift beyond measure. ~ Gloria Ng

List of Artists Who Created Fantasy Worlds to Try and Cure Bouts of Sadness
1. Italo Calvino
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Jim Henson and Jorge Luis Borges - Labyrinths
4. The creator of MySpace
5. Richard Brautigan
6. J.K. Rowling
7. The inventor of the children's toy Lite-Brite
8. Ann Sexton
9. David Foster Wallace
10. Gaugin and the Caribbean
11. Charles Schulz
12. Liam Rector ~ Shane Jones

If we just stick to one kind of music, our creativity is limited. We wanted to extend the audience for the cello, especially the younger people, and to show them how cool and how powerful and how diverse the cello can be. ~ Stjepan Hauser

Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom. ~ Rollo May

Whereever a poet is born enduring
depends on the frailest of chances:
Who listened to your murmuring
over your little rubbish who let you be
who gave you the books
who let you know you were not
alone ~ Adrienne Rich

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can. ~ Julian Barnes

كل ما مخض عنه
الخيال البشري من ابداعات الشر الخارقة, وما بلغته التكنولوجيا من قدم, يجري امتحان فاعليتها في أجسادنا
اليوم

(All the unimaginably evil inventions human creativity has ever come up with and all the advances technology has achieved - their efficacy is now being tested on our bodies.) ~ Mahmoud Darwish

The transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist feeds off woman's true energy source, i.e. her woman-identified self. It is he who recognises that if female spirit, mind, creativity and sexuality exist anywhere in a powerful way it is here, among lesbian-feminists. ~ Janice Raymond

My parents were funny. My brothers were funny. We just laughed and had a good time. Growing up, it breeds that. It breeds your funny. It breeds your creativity. ~ Kym Whitley

I do not play this instrument so well as I should wish to, but I have always supposed that to be my own fault because I would not take the trouble of practicing. ~ Jane Austen

Private imaginings may have no outcomes in the world at all. Creativity does. Being creative involves doing something. ~ Ken Robinson

All of our days are numbered; we cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you can hold on to that flame great things can be constructed around it that are massive and powerful and world changing – all held up by the tinniest of ideas. ~ Nick Cave

I finally understood that I didn't lack pen and paper but my own
memorizing mind. It had been given away with a hundred poems, called
rote learning, old-fashioned, backward, an enemy of creative thinking,
a great human gift disowned. ~ Grace Paley

The only thing all successful people have in common is that they're successful, so don't waste your time copying "the successful strategies" of others. ~ Seth Godin

Creativity would not exist as successfully or efficiently without its social world. The social is not the by-product - it is the decisive mechanism by which cultural products and cultural producers are generated, evaluated and sent to the market. ~ Elizabeth Currid

Never go into debt to become a writer. Always find other ways to support yourself so you can do the work you truly love for the right reasons. Never ask your art to support you. If you ask your art to support you it will either end up comprised or you'll be disappointed with it. It's a lot to ask of creativity for it to provide for you financially. Find a scrappy way to get by and then do the work you love for the reasons you love. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Ideas rarely come out whole. They change as they get brought to life. New constraints appear, new directions suggest themselves, and new influences come to bear. ~ David DuChemin

The artist speaks with inspiring tools of creativity. Thinkers challenge with the weapons of choice. These two forces are necessary to move souls beyond limitation. ~ T.F. Hodge

My mind and creativity comes with me wherever I go." She looks pointedly at me. "My heart, on the other hand, goes wherever you go. I don't fancy being separated from it or you. ~ Kim Holden

My beauty is my eccentricity, when I am out people stare at me and speak, look at that creative guy, unique guy, different guy. ~ Amit Kalantri

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. ~ Ken Robinson

Creativity involves missteps and imperfections. I wanted our people to get comfortable with that idea - that both the organization and its members should be willing, at times, to operate on the edge. ~ Ed Catmull

Other than much needed infrastructure development, local administrations in Papua must encourage entrepreneurship and creativity. ~ Ciputra

I hate when people act like music is nothing but wild creativity," Logan said. "That's bullshit. It's also about counting and measuring and calibrating. If you do it right." He passed his hand over my MP3 player sitting on the bed between us. It was playing Mozart to help my concentration. "And if you do it really right, no one can tell how hard it is for you. You can let them believe it's magic, because that means you must be magic. You're worth worshipping. ~ Jeri Smith-Ready

Shame breeds fear. It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, thereby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity, and trust. ~ Brene Brown

I don't like shit too perfect. I want some human stake in my shit. If it's too perfect I ain't really with it. If it's too clean I ain't really with it. If it's too polished I don't really like it. ~ Madlib

Creativity can only be anarchic, capitalist, Darwinian. ~ Umberto Eco

There is no such thing as art," he said. "There is only this painting, this piece of music, that sculpture. And it either resonates with you or it doesn't." He paused for a moment and then added, "There is no such thing as art, there are only works."
... In those two moments, Antonioni taught me something profound. ~ Herbie Hancock

Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

As long as we avoid the creative, we are condemned to reaction. ~ Paula Gunn Allen

Creating new products and services differs from making minor enhancements to existing ones. The first must focus on innovation and adaptability, whereas the second usually focuses on efficiency and optimization. Efficiency delivers products and services that we can think of. Innovation delivers products that we can barely imagine. Efficiency and optimization are appropriate drivers for a production project, whereas innovation and creativity should drive an exploration-type project. A production mindset can restrict our vision to what appears doable. An exploration mindset helps us explore what seems impossible. ~ Jim Highsmith

My brother (Bruno Mars) is as smart as he is because a lot of things he's doing, creativity wise, our Dad used to do. Things my father used to do visually and musically. I see a lot of my father's influence in both of us. ~ Eric Hernandez

It's not that much of a difference. Basically, your job is the same as a film director. It's a triangle between creativity, money, and time. But they don't really change. You're ultimately trying to get the most creativity and time with the money that you have. ~ Darren Aronofsky

Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets - one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity. ~ Rajneesh

When there's no stimulus to be found on the outside, you have no option but to look inside yourself for inspiration, and when I did it set off a creativity that had always been inside of me, It mixed with my environment and life experiences to make something tangible,something that expressed me. ~ Bernard Sumner

I think every writer owes it to themselves to face some harsh truths: in order to make a good impression, you need a unique name. ~ Luke Edley

Creativity is a form of knowledge. ~ Diane Paulus

Creativity is not being afraid to be different. It takes madness to jump at an idea that no one else believes in. ~ Barbara Januszkiewicz

All too often, legacy management practices reflexively perpetuate the past - by over-weighting the views of long-tenured executives, by valuing conformance more highly than creativity and by turning tired industry nostrums into sacred truths. ~ Gary Hamel

An artist who conforms to conventional ideas is nothing but a mere charlatan. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The writer, indeed every real artist, was the devil, rivalling God in creativity, trying even to surpass him. God was surely man's most fatal creation, the devil's kitsch bitch. It was God, with his insistence on being worshipped and admired, who made the argument of art necessary, keeping the fire of dissent alive in men and women. This dissident was the artist, who spanned with his imagination reason and unreason, the under and the over, the dream and the world, men and women. ~ Hanif Kureishi

Whenever an artist becomes dominated by his own ignorance, his art loses value, for it is only the professional artist that can be humble enough to admit that he is a tool in the hands of creativity. ~ Robin Sacredfire

The soul should always stand ajar. ~ Emily Dickinson

I'm fascinated by the concept of what I call 'clusters of creativity': the Brontes, the Waughs, families with several geniuses. I'm one of four; competition among siblings has to be a factor. ~ Nigel Hamilton

I work in the field of art, and you know how during a period of Marxist ideology, fewer people are inclined to believe in the power of the culture as a whole: they believe in the revolutionary potential of economics, class struggle theory ... Therefore it's time to show that art means the power of creativity, and it's time to define art in a larger way, to include science and religion too..(1973 ~ Joseph Beuys

It is through imagination that we transcend understanding and travel into the world of possibilities. ~ Danielle Pierre

I have never created anything in my life that did not make me feel, at some point or another, like I was the guy who just walked into a fancy ball wearing a homemade lobster costume. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

You cannot step a foot into the literature about the 1960s without being told how 'creative', 'idealistic', and 'loving' it was, especially in comparison to the 1950s. I fact, the counterculture of the Sixties represented the triumph of what the art critic Harold Rosenberg famously called the 'herd of the independent minds'. Its so-called creativity consisted in continually recirculating a small number of radical cliches; its idealism was little more than irresponsible utopianism; and its crusading for 'love' was largely a blind for hedonistic self-indulgence. ~ Roger Kimball

Wise people are able to give themselves gracefully to seemingly contradictory experiences, because they know that they belong to different seasons of life, all of which are necessary to the whole. Spring and winter, growth and decay, creativity and fallowness, health and sickness, power and impotence, and life and death all belong within the economy of being. ~ Sam Keen

As a mother you have thoughts. You get interrupted. You forget.
You are distracted. Your thoughts and ideas become fragmented,
diluted, or simply evaporate. You must have faith that you will
again have a thought. Creativity is the string upon
which you hang the pearls of your identity,
your authentic presence.
- Suzi Banks Baum ~ Suzi Banks Baum

There's a lot of wisdom that my dad and my grandparents and my uncle have been able to impart on me, and what I've treasured the most is I've seen examples in my life of people embracing their creativity, not feeling insecure about their artistic inclinations. ~ Bryce Dallas Howard

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors. ~ Paul Schrader

Any society that does not succeed in tapping into the energy and creativity of its youth will be left behind. ~ Kofi Annan

I'm really interested in the link between creativity and humor because humor is a type of creativity, and I do think that humorous people and humorous health helps creativity. ~ Robert Mankoff

Great thinkers think inductively, that is, they create solution and then seek out the problems that solution might solve; most companies think deductively, that is, defining a problem and then investigating different solutions. ~ Joey Reiman

I know that without treatment I would not have never been able to harness my creativity in such a successful way. ~ Patty Duke

We have a massive system to regulate creativity. A massive system of lawyers regulating creativity as copyright law has expanded in unrecognizable forms, going from a regulation of publishing to a regulation of copying. ~ Lawrence Lessig

People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place. ~ Richard Rohr

The thoughts we choose to think are the tools we use to paint the canvas of our lives. ~ Louise Hay

For the entirety of my young and skittish life, I had fixated upon my fear as if it were the most interesting thing about me, when actually it was the most mundane. In fact, my fear was probably the only 100 percent mundane thing about me. I had creativity within me that was original; I had a personality within me that was original; I had dreams and perspectives and aspirations within me that were original. But my fear was not original in the least. My fear wasn't some kind of rare artisanal object; it was just a mass-produced item, available on the shelves of any generic box store. And that's the thing I wanted to build my entire identity around? The most boring instinct I possessed? The panic reflex of my dumbest inner tadpole? No. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result. ~ Stephen Covey

You came here because we do this better than you and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are. ~ Don Draper

If you don't learn to travel comfortably alongside your fear, then you'll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. ~ Mary Shelley

Creativity isn't necessarily a paint-by-numbers process, more as a "connect-the-dots" adventure. ~ Pearl Zhu

Creativity is a fact of your spiritual body ~ Julia Cameron

Art turned out to be an extremely happy accident. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

Learn to be more meditative, and let your creativity be secondary to your meditativeness. Then you will have a totally different state of being - that of ecstasy; and out of ecstasy, whatever is created has also some flavor of it. ~ Rajneesh

Comparison is the enemy to creativity. ~ E'yen A. Gardner

Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity ~ T. S. Eliot

Our differences will also show up from time to time, underscoring the uniqueness of our personal endowments, the variety of our experiences, and the creativity of our sovereign God. ~ J. Grant Howard

Entrepreneurs bring to business ... creativity. ~ Wayne Rogers

The best ideas will eat at you for days, maybe even weeks, until something, some incident, some impulse, triggers you to finally express them. ~ Criss Jami

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it. ~ Carl Rogers

God had no purpose in creating the world. He was just having fun. ~ Marty Rubin

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. ~ Henri Bergson

I love any and all situations where you celebrate creativity. ~ Brad Paisley

To tell you the truth, though, I still haven't made up my mind whether I shall publish at all. Tastes differ so widely, and some people are so humourless, so uncharitable, and so absurdly wrong-headed, that one would probably do far better to relax and enjoy life than worry oneself to death trying to instruct or entertain a public which will only despise one's efforts, or at least feel no gratitude for them. ~ Thomas More

It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. ~ Vida Dutton Scudder

Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one What counts is whether the novelty he or she produces is accepted for inclusion in the domain. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career: for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free. ~ William Deresiewicz