I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight.
Robin Green Northern Exposure, Burning Down the House, 1992
Quotes on: creativity

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
Joseph Chilton Pearce
Quotes on: creativity

When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Until then, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
John W. Gardner
Quotes on: creativity

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
George Lois
Quotes on: creativity

Observe Everything.
Communicate Well.
Draw, Draw, Draw.
Frank Thomas Disney Animator, When asked to give advice to young animators
Quotes on: creativity

Humanity can be quite cold to those whose eyes see the world differently.
Eric A. Burns Gossamer Commons, 08-24-05
Quotes on: creativity

There were always people like the pope. They serve a certain function, of course. They subsidize us. But, they don't create anything and they must never be allowed to stop the artist from creating.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider Northern Exposure, Mite Makes Right, 1994
Quotes on: creativity

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
Dee Hock
Quotes on: creativity

Frugality without creativity is deprivation.
Amy Dacyczyn
Quotes on: creativity

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung
Quotes on: creativity

Creativity is...seeing something that doesn't exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God.
Michele Shea
Quotes on: creativity

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.
Norman Podhoretz
Quotes on: creativity

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
Cecil B. DeMille
Quotes on: creativity

The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Quotes on: creativity

The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Quotes on: creativity

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso
Quotes on: creativity

Every time we say, "Let there be!" in any form, something happens.
Stella Terrill Mann
Quotes on: creativity

Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Quotes on: creativity

If you want to be creative, don't try to do something new. Doing something new means not doing what's been done before, and that's a negative impulse. Negative impulses are frustrating. There the opposite of creativity, and they never yield good ideas -- not even in business or technology.
Eva Zeisel "Unit of 1", Fast Company, April 2000
Quotes on: creativity focus

You cannot fathom you mind. The more you draw from it, the more clear and fruitful it will be.
George A. Sala Soar...If You Dare
Quotes on: potential creativity

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: imagination creativity knowledge

Invent your world. Surround yourself with people, color, sounds, and work that nourish you.
Sark The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Quotes on: change self-nurture creativity joy

An entrepreneur can become moderately successful doing the same thing that everyone else does. But if you want to be wildly successful, you have to do what no one else has done.
Tim Gill "Unit of 1," Fast Company, December 1999
Quotes on: success excellence creativity

Learned that craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There's a light inside of you.
Judith Jamison The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Quotes on: creativity self-nurture openness

Before you can be creative, you must be courageous. Creativity is the destination, but courage is the journey.
Joey Reiman Fast Company magazine, July/August 1999
Quotes on: creativity courage bravery

Love is creation raised to a higher degree.
Toyohiko Kagawa The Spirit of Loving
Quotes on: love creation creativity

Creativity requires quite a lot of faith-not just in yourself but also in the knowledge that you have the right to proceed, even when you may not know exactly what you're doing. You also need to have faith that life is composed not of alien or segregated elements but of related components. Creativity comes from having an inquisitive mind, from being easily bored, from wanting to challenge the status quo. It comes from people who look for alternatives.
Twyla Tharp "Unit of One" Fast Company, April 2000
Quotes on: creativity creation innovation

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
Mary Lou Cook The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Quotes on: creativity creation creating

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: ideas creativity patience

Everything is created twice -- first mentally, then physically.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Quotes on: creativity planning goals

If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.
Natalie Goldberg "Unit of One", Fast Company, April 2000.
Quotes on: creativity awareness attention

To know how to wonder is the first step of the mind toward discovery.
Louis Pasteur Living in Balance: A Dynamic Approach for Creating Harmony & Wholeness in a Chaotic World
Quotes on: imagination awe mindfulness creativity self-awareness

I've realized that it's easiest just to sit down and start doing what you want to do, rather than sitting around thinking about it... You've got to let go of your second-guessing -- of that voice that makes you question what you're doing. You don't have time to listen to it.
Dan Hurley "Speed Writer" by Anna Muoio, Fast Company, May 2000
Quotes on: creativity confidence boldness action

All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Quotes on: creation planning creativity action

Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Robert Fulghum All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Quotes on: life balance living fun creativity joy

Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time. The problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly.
Rolf Smith "Idea summit" by Anna Muoio, Fast Company, January/February 2000
Quotes on: creativity journaling ideas brainstorms

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: mystery emotion complexity creativity

The history of ideas is just a long, banana-peel hallway.
Dale Dauten "A black-and-white hunt for vitality, niche in life" by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, September 2, 1999
Quotes on: creativity ideas invention innovation

One sure-fire way to stay creative: force yourself to learn something new.
Harvey Mackay "For many, creative spurt in life comes after age 60" by Harvey Mackay, Arizona Republic Feb. 9, 2000
Quotes on: learning growth self-improvement creativity

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subsconciousness--I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
Aaron Copland The Artist's Way
Quotes on: inspiration creativity vision talent

You have only one source of creativity -- your own unique talents, skills, perspectives, and experiences. You can't be creative with someone else's stuff, because creativity, by definition, is the process of translating who you are into some outward manifestation. It doesn't matter whether that is a painting, an ad campaign, a holiday dinner, a business report, or the raising of a healthy child. The creative process can be applied to all of our activities, eventually yielding a truly creative life.
G. Lynne Snead and Joyce Wycoff To Do Doing Done!
Quotes on: creativity living success fulfillment

So never try to manage time. It will beat you at every turn. Never try to plan your days and nights minute by minute. Do schedule your time, but never schedule 100 percent of it. You'll kill your creative impulse if you do. Never try to organize every minute of your time weeks in advance, or you'll be bored to death. Instead, let time renew itself around you. Let it divert you. Let it do something unexpected, something new. Let it bring nice things, and let it bring bad things over which you have no control. And don't try to use personal tricks to fool time. It will always catch up with you.
Nicolas Hayek "Unit of 1: It's About Time" edited by Jill Rosenfeld, Fast Company, November 1999
Quotes on: time planning flexibility creativity

It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
Abraham Maslow Thoughts on Leadership
Quotes on: personal growth self-improvement creativity becoming

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: beauty imagination creativity inspiration

A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Quotes on: strength vision mission creativity

The great enemy of creativity is fear. When we're fearful, we freeze up... Creativity has a lot to do with
Faith Ringgold "Unit of One," Fast Company, April 2000.
Quotes on: fear courage creativity play

Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine living life at the rate of an infant.
Bruce Mau "An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth" by Bruce Mau Fast Company, October 2000
Quotes on: growth learning change creativity

Curiosity is a delicate little plant which, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: curiosity creativity invention creative

I pray you... Your play needs no excuse. Never excuse.
William Shakespeare Simple Abundance
Quotes on: play joy creativity relaxation leisure

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: thought philosophy creativity originality

Don't allow yourself to say, "I'm not creative."... Creativity exists in every healthy human being. Acknowledge yours.
C. Diane Ealy, Ph.D. Woman's Book of Creativity
Quotes on: creation creativity potential ability

It's time to accept the truth that the human mind and human endeavor are not built up by daily application. The mind does not build like a bicep... Creative ideas can't be forced either; they have a life of their own. Studies show that many of the most remarkable ideas came when the thinker was doing something completely unrelated. So have some respect for your own rhythms.
Barbara Sher Live the Life You Love : In Ten Easy Step-By Step Lessons
Quotes on: creativity imagination creation creative process

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.
William Lyon Phelps The Book of Positive Quotations
Quotes on: thought intellectualism creativity education happiness

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.
Arnold H. Glasow Words for All Occasions
Quotes on: creativity imagination vision work effort

If we go down into ourselves we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
Simone Weil Simple Abundance
Quotes on: strength courage intelligence creativity self-reliance

So you see, imagination needs noodling--long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.
Brenda Ueland The Artist's Way
Quotes on: imagination creativity creative create relaxation

Nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Simple Abundance
Quotes on: uniqueness talents skills personality creativity

My teacher said to me, 'The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.'
Zen Master Dazhu Zen Essence:
Quotes on: inner peace resourcefulness creativity intuition wisdom

I have long been fascinated by how we humans participate in our own evolution. Our growth process always seems to be happening in two directions at the same time: back to who we were originally--our true selves; and forward to what we can become--fulfilling that true self.
C. Diane Ealy The Woman's Book of Creativity (The Business of Life)
Quotes on: creativity growth self-improvement learning change

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.
Cyrus H. Curtis Franklin Dayplanner, November 21, 1993
Quotes on: creativity initiative success achievement action

Play is the exultation of the possible.
Martin Buber Simple Abundance
Quotes on: play creativity joy possibilities leisure relaxation

... we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.
Shakti Gawain
Quotes on: inspiration creativity courage risk growth

Congratulate yourselves if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotomy of a decorous age.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: conformity individualism personality creativity progress

Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable.
Brenda Ueland The Artist's Way : A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Quotes on: uniqueness self-esteem creativity talents skills

Humor and creativity are kissing cousins. If you want to develop your sense of humor, invite more creativity into your life--and vice versa. In the presence of humor, new creative perspectives naturally occur. You can't stop them.
Joel Goodman, found and director of The Humor Project Jump Start Your Brain
Quotes on: laughter fun humor creativity perspective balance

Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.
Benjamin Franklin Jump Start Your Brain
Quotes on: stress wellness relaxation creativity ideas

Most people feel like a fraud when they assume a new role. Unaware that this is a normal experience, they fear being exposed. Such fear inhibits spontaneous creativity and undermines your ability to work at optimal speed. Accept that feeling, and unlock your creative responses to change.
Ronit Herzfeld "Master of Startup Disasters" by Rekha Balu,Fast Company, June 2000
Quotes on: learning education growth creativity change

Ideas without action are worthless.
Harvey Mackay United Features Syndicate column, printed 3/22/98 in the Arizona Republic.
Quotes on: action creativity opportunity work ideas

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize him and thus force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: ideas imagination creativity hope fear

Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives...most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity...[and] when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Quotes on: creativity life living fulfillment meaning

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive at...
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Quotes on: focus attention leadership ideas creativity

Great ideas start with completely unrealistic thoughts.
Markus Mettler "Great Ideas in Aisle 9" Fast Company, April 2000
Quotes on: creativity brainstorming innovation change genius

I learned... that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic, striving, but it comes to us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.
Brenda Ueland Treasury of Women's Quotations
Quotes on: inspiration creativity meditation solitude leisure

...his delight is in the law of the LORD, ``and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Psalm 1:2-3 Holy Bible
Quotes on: inspiration creativity meditation solitude leisure

Creativity doesn't just leak away; it gets buried. Buried by years of looking for the one right answer in school, by hundreds of multiple choice tests and rigid lesson plans; buried by boring jobs, workplace politics, restrictive rules, and fear of failure, and it gets buried by our own definition of "noncreative." We don't need to learn how to be creative; we need to unlearn how to be uncreative!
G. Lynne Snead and Joyce Wycoff To Do Doing Done!
Quotes on: creativity growth learning education self-improvement

...if the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original as well as competent.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Quotes on: future education children self-confidence creativity

To every answer you can find a new question.
Yiddish proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Quotes on: learning education research creativity imagination

The significant problems we face cannot be resolved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
Albert Einstein Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Quotes on: problems challenges creativity obstacles difficulties

Man's creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story.
Iris Murdoch The Spirit of Loving
Quotes on: education learning growth self-improvement truth creativity

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein The Alexander Technique Workbook: Your Personal Program for Health, Poise and Fitness
Quotes on: imagination creativity brainstorming problemsolving knowledge wisdom

In order to allow ourselves to be creative, we have to relinquish control and overcome fear. Why? Because real creativity is life-altering. It threatens the status quo; it makes us see things differently. It brings about change, and we are terrified of change.... we live in a wild universe -- a universe in which the truth is frightening. My son died last December. He was only forty-seven years old. That's scary, and its lousy, but it's true. Creativity comes from accepting that you're not safe, from being absolutely aware, and from letting go of control. It's a matter of seeing everything -- even when you want to shut your eyes.
Madeleine L'Engle "Unit of One" Fast Company, April 2000
Quotes on: creativity fear control courage change truth

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: curiosity discovery invention creativity mystery reality

Every noble work is, at first, impossible.
Thomas Carlyle Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Quotes on: purpose meaning fulfillment success vision creativity

When you analyze admirable lives, you find they are made up of minor details, of dabbling, of experiments, of people who look back and see they were preparing themselves for careers they didn't even know they wanted. Along the way they experience so many flukes and coincidences that you can only conclude that those who experiment put themselves in the path of happenstance, watched over by the angels of coincidence.
Dale Dauten "Greatest success comes from following dream" by Dale Dauten, Arizona Republic, 5/15/2000
Quotes on: creativity imagination purpose fulfillment career success

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We're making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
William James Soar... If You Dare
Quotes on: potential creativity intelligence stretch growth self-improvement

When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.
Sigmund Freud Jump Start Your Brain
Quotes on: inspiration creativity ideas work effort success

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Quotes on: spirituality ideas creativity soul thought vision

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
Samuel Johnson The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Quotes on: wisdom curiosity learning creativity imagination character

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most wanted to do.
W.H. Auden The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Quotes on: genius excellence success vision creativity invention

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a while, as glasses being rubbed acquire electric power for a while.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: wisdom relationship friends growth learning creativity

Imagination is not the talent of some men, but is the health of every man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: imagination creativity dreams ideas talent wellness

An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body.
General George Patton Words for All Occasions
Quotes on: exercise wellness health creativity imagination thought

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: talent skills ability gift curiosity creativity

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Quotes on: discovery knowledge ability talent creativity skill

I like thinking of possibilities. At any time, an entirely new possibility is liable to come along and spin you off in an entirely new direction. The trick, I've learned, is to be awake to the moment.
Doug Hall Jump Start Your Brain
Quotes on: possibilities potential opportunity vision creativity present

Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Quotes on: life love creativity standards expectations wellness

Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question: It provides one of the most exciting models for living.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Quotes on: problems creativity life living goals positive

Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance.
Julie Cameron The Artist's Way
Quotes on: creativity security safety self-acceptance self-esteem ideas

Why should we use all our creative power....? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money.
Brenda Ueland The Artist's Way
Quotes on: creativity joy generosity compassion materialism growth expression

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Quotes on: growth change creativity imagination past future

He most lives who thinks most, who feels the noblest, and who acts the best.
Philip James Bailey Light from Many Lamps
Quotes on: thought character imagination creativity motives actions deeds

A frontier is never a place; it is a time and a way of life.
Hal Borland The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Quotes on: frontier discovery creation creativity time growth change

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.
Robert Half Words for All Occasions
Quotes on: action thought work effort success creativity imagination

What brings us out of comfort and fear is imagination -- creativity. Those who truly love danger aren't extreme athletes, triathaloners, or mountaineers. Creative people plunge into disaster every time they do something new. Because every time they try something new, they risk everything that's familiar to them. They have to confront their incompetence and stupidity, feelings that all of us carefully avoid. That's the journey of power and danger.
John Tarrant "How will you fail?" by Harriet Rubin, Fast Company, October 1999
Quotes on: imagination creativity courage strength failure risk power

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step in the music he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: success hurry desperation individualism creativity unique vision

If you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Quotes on: proactive circumstances creativity mission vision learning growth

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Henry Miller
Quotes on: focus awareness growth appreciation gratitude happiness creativity joy

...idealism is one of the greatest forces in the world. It makes seeming impossibilities possible and succeeds where prudence fails. But unless the idealist is brave and has the courage to face the truth, his idealism creates nothing.
Grenville Kleiser The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: idealism idealist possibilities courage strength truth creativity

If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning...The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.
Marion Woodman from the essay "Soul Moments" Handbook for the Soul
Quotes on: soul self-nurturing spirituality life meaning creativity living

If you are serious about your goals, drop the conditions. Go directly to your goal. Be your goal! Conditions often disguise strategies for escaping accountability. Why not just take charge and create the experience you are looking for?
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Quotes on: goals conditions limits circumstances responsibility creativity vision

There is always a better way.
Thomas Edison Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Quotes on: growth change progress self-improvement success opportunity creativity

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 no poverty and no indifferent place.
Rainer Maria Rilke Simple Abundance
Quotes on: creativity responsibility boredom apathy meaning purpose fulfillment

Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
Diane Ackerman Deep Play
Quotes on: play creativity experimentation leisure relaxation exploration discovery

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of many hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
William Shakespeare Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Quotes on: dream vision goal imagination creativity self-expression artistic

In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.
P. D. Ouspensky The Spirit of Loving
Quotes on: love creation creativity creative purpose fulfillment meaning

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
George Bernard Shaw The Portable Curmudgeon
Quotes on: beauty art creativity artisans sculptors writers painters artists

All the good, fine, noble, and creative acts of humanity were conceived as a spark in a single human consciousness.
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Quotes on: ideas creativity creation thought mind art artists inventors

The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.
Arthur Schopenhauer Light from Many Lamps
Quotes on: thought learning continuing education knowledge imagination creativity

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.
Thomas Watson, Sr., founder of IBM Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Quotes on: failure success mistakes creativity challenges growth learning education

Ideas become powerful only if they appear in the flesh; an idea which does not lead to action by the individual and by groups remains at best a paragraph or a footnote in a book--provided the idea is original and relevant. It is like a seed stored in a dry place. If the idea is to have influence, it must be put into the soil, and the soil is people and groups of people.
Erich Fromm Thoughts on Leadership
Quotes on: ideas creativity work effort mission goal success achievement

No man ever yet became great by imitation.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Quotes on: conformity imitation individuality originality creativity fads greatness vision

What's vital about our creative process is that we learn to use it, to nurture it and express it in our daily lives.
C. Diane Ealy The Woman's Book of Creativity (The Business of Life)
Quotes on: creativity growth change self-improvement self-nurture talents ability self-expression

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk--the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behavior, the second can wilt if not cultivated. If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are put in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Quotes on: safety risk exploration creativity energy novelty opportunities behavior

The important point about problem solving is not that some people are better at it than others. Instead, the important point is that problem solving can be learned. It frequently isn't learned because it isn't taught.
John D. Bransford and Barry S. Stein The Ideal Problem Solver
Quotes on: problems obstacles challenges difficulties creativity ability education learning

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Quotes on: potential synergy creativity growth learning living values principles

To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think, is to weave them into garlands.
Anne Sophie Swetchine Treasury of Women's Quotations
Quotes on: ideas thought thinking planning vision mission creativity imagination

Think "impossible" and dreams get discarded, projects get abandoned , and hope for wellness is torpedoed. But let someone yell the words "It's possible," and resources we hadn't been aware of come rushing in to assist us in our quest. I believe we are all potentially brilliant and creative--but only if we believe it, only if we have an attitude of positive expectancy toward our ideas, and only if we act on them.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Quotes on: dreams projects impossible wellness resources creativity attitude ideas action

Today many American corporations spend a great deal of money and time trying to increase the originality of their employees, hoping thereby to get a competitive edge in the marketplace. But such programs make no difference unless management also learns to recognize the valuable ideas among the many novel ones, and then finds ways of implementing them.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Finding Flow: The Psychololgy of Engagement With Everyday Life
Quotes on: creativity innovation business success achievement managing vision employee recognition

You are the product of your own brainstorm.
Rosemary Konner Steinbaum Treasury of Women's Quotations
Quotes on: ideas character creativity personality vision mission goals dreams direction

The significant business of your life is alive and well, awaiting discovery, within your very soul. You and I were born to come into ourselves as complete and distinctive persons. Accepting this, we build a valuable life. This is the hidden, undergirding occupation beneath anyone's meaningful purpose.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Quotes on: life vocation living goal vision mission purpose fulfillment creativity

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
John Burroughs Light from Many Lamps
Quotes on: work vocation occupation meaning purpose fulfillment career creativity service

Identifying your enthusiasms requires courage and heroic creative vision. You have to believe that what you want is possible for you.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Quotes on: vision purpose goals mission enthusiasm talents gifts courage creativity self-confidence

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: creativity create yearning desire dreams goals vision ideas innovation invent

Sometimes we feel so worn down by our spirit-breaking, daily grind (or a serious loss, like being fired) that we lack the energy and hope needed to reach our goals. The creative process makes demands on us. In and of itself, it can trigger anxiety, conflict, chronic fatigue, and even intense resistance (what I've called the Big R)--the recoil, or withdrawal of energy from obligations. When apathy or restlessness undercut our plans, the Big R is usually lurking close by.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Quotes on: apathy fatigue energy goals hope vision creativity resistance restlessness purpose

If you want to be creative in your company, your career, your life, all it takes is one easy step...the extra one. When you encounter a familiar plan, you just ask one question: "What ELSE could we do?"
Dale Dauten "Grimness shouldn't be part of creativity"``by Dale Dauten, published in the Arizona Republic Oct. 29, 1998.
Quotes on: creativity leadership excellence. go the extra mile initiative innovation business customer service

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.
Carol Lloyd Creating a Life Worth Living
Quotes on: creative expression creativity inspired determination effort work imagine achievement success

All of us are far richer than we imagine. None of us possess a life devoid of magic, barren of grace, divorced from power. Our inner resources, often unmined and even unknown or unacknowledged, are the treasures we carry, what I call our spiritual DNA.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
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Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
Joseph Joubert The Book of Positive Quotations
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The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
Thomas J. Watson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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The greatest difficulty is that men do not think enough of themselves, do not consider what it is that they are sacrificing when they follow in a herd, or when they cater for their establishment...A man should learn to detect and foster that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within far more than the luster of the whole firmament without. Yet he dismisses without notice his peculiar thought because it is peculiar. The time will come when he will postpone all acquired knowledge to this spontaneous wisdom, and will watch for this illumination more than those who watch for morning.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium. It will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions.
Martha Graham Creating a Life Worth Living
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Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt The Book of Positive Quotations
Quotes on: happiness joy success achievement goal creativity creation work effort purpose meaning fulfillment.

The only difference between a thought and physical reality is time, passion (love or hate), and physical activity.
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
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Newborn ideas are fragile, like babies. They need nurturing, protecting, patience, loving, commitment. They require you to sit up with them at night, fret over their futures, watch them grow. And like babies, they can't be hurried. They unfurl and blossom in their own time.
Doug Hall Jump Start Your Brain
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...even without success, creative persons find joy in a job well done. Learning for its own sake is rewarding...
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
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One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Elbert Hubbard The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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Failure is just part of the culture of innovation. Accept it and become stronger.
Albert Yu Fast Company magazine, December 1998, p. 132.
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The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.
Ovid Light from Many Lamps
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Most of us are not raised to actively encounter our destiny. We may not know that we have one. As children, we are seldom told we have a place in life that is uniquely ours alone. Instead, we are encouraged to believe that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others, that we will (or should) find our satisfactions as they have found theirs. Rather than being taugh to ask ourselves who we are, we are schooled to ask others. We are, in effect, trained to listen to others' versions of ourselves. We are brought up in our life as told to us by someone else! When we survey our lives, seeking to fulfill our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the dream was beyond our reach. Many of us would have been, or at least might have been, done, tried something, if...
If we had known who we really were.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Quotes on: destiny dream goal vision childraising self-determination self-esteem expectations happiness success creativity imagination potential self-knowledge

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power that resides in him is new in Nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action, this, though not easy, is the work of divine man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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...start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress. Works-in-progress are never perfect. But changes can be made...Art evolves. So does life. Art is never stagnant. Neither is life. The beautiful, authentic life you are creating for yourself is your art. It's the highest art.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Quotes on: life living risk stretching daring courage strength perfectionism mistakes creativity authenticity fulfillment meaning purpose balance

Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity such as I cannot derive from other realms.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Quotes on: art beauty joy happiness artists artistic expression creativity creative expression artwork

Too much of our work amounts to the drudgery of arranging means toward ends, mechanically placing the right foot in front of the left and the left in front of the right, moving down narrow corridors toward narrow goals. Play widens the halls. Work will always be with us, and many works are worthy. But the worthiest works of all often reflect an artful creativity that looks more like play than work.
James Ogilvy Living Without a Goal: Finding the Freedom to Live a Creative and Innovative Life by James Ogilvy
Quotes on: work routine rut play fun silly silliness play creativity imagination

...the details of our days do make a difference in our lives...no experience is ever just for drill...everything can be a springboard for inspiration if we are willing to be open to the goodness of life.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Quotes on: routine journaling daily living growth learning change living joy happiness creativity inspired

...conflict is the primary engine of creativity and innovation. People don't learn by staring into a mirror; people learn by encountering difference.
Ronald Heifetz The Leader of the Future by William C. Taylor. Fast Company Magazine, June 1999
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Our dreams, goals, and ideas come from our values...If what we are doing does not come from what we care about most in life, it is meaningless.
G. Lynne Snead and Joyce Wycoff To Do Doing Done!
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Almost any idea is good if a man has ability and is willing to work hard. The best idea is worthless if the creator is a loafer and ineffective.
William Feather The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
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The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny--that which we call character--but rather improving it and enhancing it as far as possible...Through training, instruction, contemplation, success, failure, advancement, hindrance, and ever more contemplation, the organs of man, in their instinctive, free activity, unite the acquired with the innate to produce a harmonious unity that astonished the world.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Permanent Goethe Edited, Selected and with an Introduction by Thomas Mann
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