Creativity Quotations
Creativity Quotations – Inspiring quotes
Compiled by Pete Moorhouse irresistible-learning.co.uk
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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