Creativity Quotes
Top 50 Creativity Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
Nothing drives progress like the imagination.
- Theodore (Ted) Levitt, pictured right, in
The Marketing Imagination
(1983)
William
Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet, pictured right, in his poem The Prelude (1850) agrees:
Imagination...is but another name for absolute power.
No 2
Imitation is suicide.
- Dale Carnegie, pictured right, How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living (1944)
No 3
The difficulty lies not in the new ideas but in escaping the old ones.
- John Maynard
Keynes (1883-1946), English economist, pictured right.
No 4
Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
- Thomas Edison (1847–1931)
American inventor, pictured right.
No 5
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
(from Man and Superman, 1903)
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish writer, pictured right above.
The English writer Douglas Adams (1952-2001), pictured right, after agrees:
Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable.
No 6
Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.
- Andrew Grove, boss of Intel 1987-98, pictured
right.
This balance between order and chaos is supported by two great thinkers:
Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.
- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC) Greek
philosopher,pictured right.
Harmony in discord.
- Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet, pictured right.
The German philosopher, Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900), pictured right, adds:
You must have chaos in you, to give birth to a dancing star.
No 7
Creative people have an abiding curiosity and an insatiable desire to learn how and why things work.
- William (Bill)
Hewlett (1919-2001), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.
No 8
Don’t be trapped by dogma which is the result of other people’s thinking.
- Steve Jobs (1955- 2011), co-founder of Apple,
pictured right.
No 9
Curiosity is the key to creativity.
- Akio Morita (1921-1999), co-founder of Sony,
pictured right.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
German-born American scientist agrees,pictured right:
The important thing is not to stop questioning: never lose a holy curiosity.
But Dumbledore in JK Rowling's, pictured
right, Goblet of Fire warns us:
Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity
No 10
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.
- James Dewar (1842–1923), Scottish physicist, pictured right.
No 11
Ask an impertinent question and you are on your way to a pertinent answer
(from The Ascent of Man, 1973)
- Jacob Bronowski (1908-74), Polish-born British scientist, pictured right .
So Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), the French anthropologist, pictured right, says:
The wise man is not the man who gives the right answers; he is the one who asks the right questions.
No 12
Our life is the creation of our mind.
- Gautama Buddha (563-483 BC),
founder of Buddhism, pictured right.
No 13
I live entirely in my music.
- Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827) German composer, pictured right above.
Nick Park (1958- ) English film animator
and creator of Wallace and Gromit, pictured right, agrees:
With anything creative, you get fired up and absorbed by the idea
No 14
Criticize by creating.
- Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian
painter, sculptor, architect and poet, pictured right.
No 15
I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'.
- Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) Dutch
painter, pictured right.
Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart (1756-91) Austrian composer ,pictured right, agrees:
I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame... I simply follow my own feelings.
No 16
I work on intuition, thinking that an idea ought to be right, then I try to prove it.
- Stephen Hawking (1942- )
English scientist, pictured right.
Steve Jobs (1955- 2011), co-founder of
Apple, pictured right, has
similar views:
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), the
German-born American scientist, pictured right, also said:
I believe in intuition and inspiration.
No 17
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes .
- Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French
writer, pictured right.
No 18
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil,
- Thomas Edison 1847–1931
American inventor, pictured right.
No 19
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation…The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
(from The Ascent of Man, 1973)
- Jacob Bronowski (1908-74), Polish-born British scientist, pictured right .
No 20
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental
constitution of their modes of thought.
- John Stuart
Mill (1806–73) English philosopher, pictured right.
No 21
I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before
me.
- Isaac Newton (1642-1727) ,English
scientist, pictured right.
No 22
It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.
- Galileo (1564-1642), Italian scientist,
pictured right.
No 23
The most basic principle of lateral thinking is that any particular way of looking at things is only one from
among any other possible ways.
- Edward de Bono, pictured right, in Lateral Thinking (1970)
No 24
Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.
- Masaru Ibuka (1908-97), co-founder of Sony, pictured right.
No 25
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, pictured right.
No 26
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
- David Hume (1711–76)
Scottish philosopher, pictured right.
No 27
You cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.
- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55)
Danish philosopher, pictured right.
No 28
I do not seek, I find.
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish
artist, pictured right.
No 29
The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become
wise.
- Ecclesiasticus ch 38 v 24 (in the Bible)
No 30
Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the
song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something.
- John
Lennon (1940-80), one of the Beatles, pictured right.
No 31
Ideas are important but reality is even more important.
- Mao
Zedong (1893-1976), pictured right, Chinese leader.
No 32
Look at life, draw from life and express from life.
- Nic Fiddian Green (1963- ), English sculptor,pictured right
No 33
Creativity requires the courage to let go of
certainties.
- Erich Fromm (1900-80), American philosopher and
psychologist,pictured right, .
No 34
Everything comes from experiment.
- Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95),
English pottery manufacturer,pictured right,
No 35
The creation of a thousand forests is one acorn.
- Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and philosopher,pictured right.
No 36
The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of
them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas.
- Edward de Bono, pictured right, in Six Thinking Hats (1985)
No 37
If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
- Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian
painter, sculptor, architect and poet, pictured right.
No 38
Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion, more interesting than
the inventions themselves.
- Gottfried
Leibniz (1646-1716), German philosopher and mathematician,pictured right.
No 39
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
- John Stuart
Mill (1806-73), English philosopher,pictured right.
No 40
The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth and is not content with common opinion but soars with
undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.
- Plato (427-347 BC), Greek
philosopher,pictured right.
No 41
Ideas shape the course of history.
- John Maynard
Keynes (1883-1946), English economist,pictured right.
No 42
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.
- William James (1842-1910),
American psychologist and philosopher,pictured right.
No 43
It’s necessary to be slightly underemployed, if you are to do something significant.
- James
Watson (1928-), American scientist, pictured right.
No 44
Only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955),
German-born American scientist, pictured right.
No 45
You ask how to fight an idea. I'll tell you how. With another idea.
- Messala (Stephen Boyd in the film, Ben-Hur,1958, pictured right).
No 46
The only available method for changing ideas is conflict.
- Edward de Bono, pictured right, Lateral Thinking (1970)
No 47
The source of new ideas is people.
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, pictured right,
The Change
Masters (1984)
No 48
If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it.
- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC),pictured
right, the Greek philosopher
No 49
Men think differently who live differently.
- Harold Laski (1893-1950), English political writer and professor, pictured right.
No 50
Never stifle a generous impulse
- William (Bill)
Hewlett (1919-2001), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.
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