quotations about creativity
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
CARL SAGAN
Broca's Brain
The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.
NEIL GAIMAN
journal, Nov. 5, 2004
Creativity is, as the mythologists insist, an intrusion into the inviolable realm of deity--of abstraction--where we with our spastic actuality can never fully go.
A.A. ATTANASIO
The Dark One
Creativity of all kinds, in art, in prayer, in justice-making, in human relationships, is born where people wrestle with angels, outside Eden, on the border between heaven and earth, where they struggle to create a new form, a new song, a new template, a new ethic with all the discipline and passion they can bring to bear.
KATHY GALLOWAY
introduction, Dreaming of Eden
If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Sonnets to Orpheus
Creation is a disturbing force in society because it is a constructive one. It upsets the old order in the acts of building a new one. This activity is salutary for society. It is, indeed, essential for the maintenance of society's health; for the one thing that is certain about human affairs is that they are perpetually on the move, and the work of creative spirits is what gives society a chance of directing its inevitable movement along constructive instead of destructive lines.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE
Widening Horizons in Creativity
The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
GEORGE LOIS
The Art of Advertising
A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive.
FRANK HERBERT
unpublished notes
When I was 10, I learned what unlocks creativity. We were studying William Butler Yeats, one of the great poets of the 20th century, and my teacher explained that there was a period when Yeats had writer's block. I put my hand up in class and asked, "Why didn't he write about that?" It was like, "Oh, shut up." I've since learned that there's something to being truthful. The Scriptures say the truth will set you free. The truth is at the root of every piece of creativity. So if you're truthful about your situation, whatever it is as an artist--whether it's despair, whether it's hope, whether it's ambition--suddenly you're there.
BONO
Oprah Magazine, Apr. 2004
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.
MAYA ANGELOU
Conversations with Maya Angelou
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Creativity is the spark of life, the vitality that stirs desires to improve and change the status quo--meaningfully, responsibly, wisely, and with impact.
MARCI SEGAL
Creativity and Personality Type
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
attributed, How to Think Like Einstein
If you stick in the business of being creative, you get hurt. And creative disappointment seems so much harder to take than any other kind. But if you're not prepared to get hurt like that, life can be pretty boring. I think I'm going to keep on going.
CHUCK BARRIS
The Guardian, Mar. 3, 2003
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
JOHN CLEESE
attributed, The Almanac of Quotable Quotes
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
PEARL S. BUCK
attributed, Reader's Digest, 1973
That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.
RAY BRADBURY
Zen in the Art of Writing
Creativity is an incremental process--the instant Big Idea does not exist.
ANDY GREEN
Creativity in Public Relations
Only God truly creates, for only God is unconstrained by things external to himself.
JEREMY BEGBIE
Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts
Creativity is that delicate combination of elements that result in new ideas and innovations.
ALFREDA DOYLE
Poetry about Creativity