Creativity Quotations

Creativity Quotations – Inspiring quotes

Compiled by Pete Moorhouse  irresistible-learning.co.uk

Share this resource – help inspire creativity! Print quotes and place them around your home or workplace!

 

To contribute more quotes to this resource email:  studio@petemoorhouse.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

Creativity is the ability to illustrate what is outside the box from within the box

Unknown

 

 

 

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

 Albert Einstein

 

  

 

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity

Albert Einstein

 

  

The only limits to our realisation of tomorrow will be our doubts of today

Roosevelt

  

 

 

Everyone thinks of changing the world ,but no one thinks of challenging himself

 Leo Tolstoi

 

 

 

An idea is a feat of association

 Robert Frost

 

  

 

Don’t be afraid of new ideas. Be afraid of old ideas. They keep you where you are and stop you from growing and moving forward. Concentrate on where you want to go, not on what you fear.

Anthony Robbins

 

 

 

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

 Michalangelo

  

 

 

If you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish

Chinese proverb

  

 

 

The best way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones.

 Linus Pauling – Nobel prize winner

  

 

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn. It can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried death by a frown on the wrong persons brow.

 Charles Browder

 

  

 

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen

 John Steinbeck

 

  

 

New ideas come from differences

Nicholas Negroponte

 

 

 

 

Like lots of breakthroughs, the Fosbury Flop (now the standard in high jumping) looked strange the first time you saw it. Really strange

 Tom Kelly Olympic CC   

 

 

 

How often have we declared a task impossible? A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them.

 Pierro Ferrucci

 

 

 

The best innovators aren’t lone geniuses. They are people who can take an idea that’s obvious in one context and apply it in not so obvious ways to a different context               

Harvard Business review

 

 

 

 

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it

 Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all.

 Edward de Bono

 

 

  

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

 Jan van Snepecheut

 

 

 

When you have a result you expect, you have a another result; but when you have a result you don’t expect you have a discovery

 Frank Westheimer

 

 

  

I have not failed, I have merely found ten thousand ways that won’t work.

 Thomas Edison

 

 

  

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it

Chinese proverb

 

 

 

 I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas; I’m frightened by old ones.

 John Cage

 

 

 

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”

 G B Shaw

  

 

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

 Scott Adams

  

 

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

 Pablo Picasso

 

 

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

 J Pearce

 

 

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way

 Ed Bono

 

 

 

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

 Gail Sheeley

 

 

 

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

Brian Eno

 

 

 

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

 Brian Eno

 

 

 

Every child is an artist; the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.

 Pablo Picasso

 

 

 

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint”, then by all means paint,

and that voice will be silenced

 Vincent van Gogh

 

 

 

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people”

 Leo Burnett

 

  

 

“You can’t wait for inspiration,

You have to go after it with a club”

 Jack London

 

  

 

“Imagination is the beginning of creation.

You imagine what you desire, you will what you will imagine, and at last

you create what you will”

 George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

“Think left and think right

and think low and think high

Oh, the thinks you can think up

if only you try!”

 Dr Seuss

 

 

  

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas”

Donatella Versace

 

 

  

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things, you simply must do things”

 Ray Bradbury

 

“Creativity is connecting things. When you ask creative people how  they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious them after a while.”

Steve Jobs

 

 

You see things; and you say, “Why?”

But I dream things that were never there; and I say, “Why not?”

 George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

 

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on”

 Albert Einstein

 

  

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, find opportunity.”

Albert Einstien

 

 

  

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”

 Rumi

 

 

 

Perfection is a goal that guarantees failure.”

Sheldon Kopp

 

  

 

It, (creativity) requires an inclination to step into the unknown, as well as the ability to persist when there is no end in sight.”

Shaun McNif

 

 

 

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.”

 Duke Ellington

 

  

 

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.”

 Margaret Atwood

 

  

 

“You can’t plan for a seizure of feeling, and for this reason I put everything aside when I am inspired.”

May Sarton

 

 

 

“Often nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. One takes a rest, and then all of a sudden the   decisive idea presents itself to the mind.”

Henri Poincare

 

 

“The creative spirit demands persistence.”

Shaun McNiff

 

 

 

“Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality.”

 Arthur Koestler

 

 

 

“I believe the best part of your work has to be unconscious.”

Louis Malle

 

  

 

“We live within the process of creation just as much as it exists within us.”

Shaun McNiff 

 

 

 

“Creativity is the marriage humanity makes with eternity.”

 Eric Maisel

 

  

“Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled.”

 Unknown

 

 

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

 Albert Einstein 

 

 

“Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and the pupil are located in the same individual.”

Arthur Koestler

 

 

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”

Erich Fromm

 

 

 

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”

Buckminster Fuller

 

  

“A wonderful harmony is created when we join together the seemingly unconnected”

Heraclitus

 

  

“As soon as you have made a thought – laugh at it”

Lao Tzu

 

 

 

“Every act of creation is at first an act of destruction”

Picasso

  

 

 

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you have”

Emile Chartier

  

 

 

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.

 J Pearce

 

 

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way

 Ed Bono

 

 

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.

 Gail Sheeley

 

 

 

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

Brian Eno

 

 

It’s not the destination that matters. It’s the change of scene.

Brian Eno

  

 

It is easier to tone down a wild idea than to think up a new one

Alex Osbourne

 

  

Change only favours minds that are diligently looking and preparing for discovery

 Louie Pasteur

 

 

 

Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just stand there

 Will Rogers

 

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced

 Ned Rorem

 

 

 Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true – but it’s father is creativity, and knowledge is the midwife.

 Jonathan Schattke

 

 

Imagination is the beginning of creation

 George Bernard Shaw

 

 

 

Every exit is the entry to somewhere else

 Tom Stoppard

 

  

Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what nobody has thought

 Albert Gyorgyl

 

 

 

Creativity consists of coming up with many ideas, not just that one great idea.

 Charles Thomson

 

 

 The man with a new idea is a crank – until the idea succeeds.

 Mark Twain

 

 

 A haunch is creativity trying to tell you something

  

 

 

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending upon the talent that rubs against it

 

  

 

No matter how old you get if you can keep the desire to be creative, you’re keeping the inner child alive

 John Cassavetes

 

  

 

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak

 G Chesterton

 

 

 Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt.

 Edward de Bono

  

 

It is better to have enough ideas for some to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all

 Edward de Bono

 

  

Creativity is the most important resource of all. Without creativity there would be no progress, and we would forever be repeating the same old patterns

 Edward de Bono

 

 

Intelligence we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learnt

 Edward de Bono

 

  

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination

 John Dewey

 

  

Genius is one percent imagination and ninety-nine percent perspiration

 Thomas Edison

 

  

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge points to what we already know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

 Albert Einstein

 

 

Children between the ages of 2 and 7 are very imaginative. This is the best period for developing imagination, creativity and thinking abilities.

 Chiam Heng Keng

 

  

“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream”

 Malcolm Muggeridge

 

 

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think

 Socrates

 

 

If you want to change you have to be prepared to think differently

 Unknown

 

 

Tell me and I’ll forget

Show me and I’ll remember

Involve me and I’ll understand

 Chinese Proverb

 

  

The opposite of play is not work but depression

 Unknown

 

 

Play is the highest form of research

 Unknown

 

 

Play seriously – insignificant doodles might turn into great ideas

 Grayson Perry

 

  

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

 Plato

 

 Nothing is created or destroyed just transformed

 Lavoiser

 

  

“Creativity becomes more visible when adults try to be more attentive to the cognitive processes of children than to the results they achieve in various fields of doing and understanding.”

Malaguzzi

  

 

“We are all creative. Creativity is the hallmark human capacity that has allowed us to survive thus far. Our brains are wired to be creative, and the only thing stopping you from expressing the creativity that is your birthright is your belief that there are creative people and uncreative people and that you fall in that second category.”

 Shelley Carson

 

 

“Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark.”

 Anatole France

 

  

“Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known.”

Loris Malaguzzi

  

 

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.”

 Plutarch

 

  

“Creativity involves putting your imagination to work. In a sense, creativity is applied imagination.”

 Sir Ken Robinson

  

 

“Creativity is a multi-faceted process. It involves many ordinary abilities and some specialized skills and techniques; it can be fostered by many different ways of thinking, and it draws on critical judgment as well as imagination, intuition and often gut feelings.”

 Sir Ken Robinson

 

  

“Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.”

Sir Ken Robinson

  

 

“Teaching for creativity aims to encourage self-confidence, independence of mind, and the capacity to think for oneself.”

Sir Ken Robinson

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