Creativity Quotes

Creativity is not intelligence, it is the ability to do what you did not know through the use of what you know.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

We all have the muscle of creativity in our minds, but for it to consistently give great results it needs daily exercise.

~ Yusuf A. Leinge

Like almost all of Beefheart's recorded work, [Trout Mask Replica] was not even ahead of its time in 1969. Then and now, it stands outside time, trends, fads, hypes, the rise and fall of whole genres eclectic as walking Christmas trees, constituting a genre unto itself: truly, a musical Monolith if ever there was one.

~ Lester Bangs

An imperfect creative expression is much more sensible and creative than a grammatically perfect expression without an iota of sense and value in it.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

As an artist, motive means opportunity

~ Siren Waroe

We exist to fully participate in the creation our own lives.

~ Toni Sorenson

Waiting patiently for the fatest bone is a dog's lifestyle.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Intellectual growth is when you surpass the barrier of puerility, puzzling people with your dazzling creativity.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

~ Maya Angelou

This has been my vocation to make music of what remains.

~ Itzhak Perlman

What do you really want?Did you know that every single one of your desires is an expression of your soul's longing to experience human life as you? It's true.These pure impulses get filtered through our conditioning and show up distorted at times, but follow them back to their source and nothing you desire is anything but good and possible.

~ Jacob Nordby

Writer's block is just another name for fear.

~ Jacob Nordby

This principle eludes most people, but it is critical: You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.

~ Ed Catmull

Hurry up! Do it – get it done. You got work to do. Don’t put this off and don’t take the long view. Life is today and tomorrow, and if you are lucky, may be next week.

~ Garrison Keillor

Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it.

~ Charlotte Eriksson

To forget oneself-to lose oneself in the music, in the moment- that kind of absorption seems to be at the heart of every creative endeavor.

~ Dani Shapiro

The unforeseen is the most beautiful gift life can give us. That is what we must think of multiplying in our domain. That is what should have been talked about in this assembly, and no one has said a word about it ...Art is inconceivable without risk, without inner sacrifice; freedom and boldness of imagination can be won only in the process of work, and it is there the unforeseen I spoke of a moment ago must intervene, and there no directives can help.

~ Boris Pasternak

With poetry and writing, the question isn’t “do you know the right words?”.The real question is, “can you make words from the unwordable, chisel blocks of raw silence into shapes and touch our souls?

~ Jacob Nordby

I can’t overstate how little I knew about myself at 22, or how little I’d thought about what I was doing. When I graduated from college I genuinely believed that the creative life was the apex of human existence, and that to work at an ordinary office job was a betrayal of that life, and I had to pursue that life at all costs. Management consulting, law school, med school, those were fine for other people — I didn’t judge! — but I was an artist. I was super special. I was sparkly. I would walk another path.And I would walk it alone. That was another thing I knew about being an artist: You didn’t need other people. Other people were a distraction. My little chrysalis of genius was going to seat one and one only.

~ Lev Grossman

A degree helps to a degree, but your work is largely what you create it to be.

~ Ryan Lilly

Create a standard for yourself and not a limit. A limit tells where you can reach in life, but standard tells about what you will love to do best at a time!

~ Israelmore Ayivor

When you are doing things for the right reasons, you do not need to play by the rules, because there are no rules for a creator walking the path of love.

~ Bryant Mcgill

As a writer, I see the saga of your life in a single glimpse. It may be inaccurate, but my version doesn't lack for creativity.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The knowledge of the Spirit is the true secret of creativity, leadership and happiness. It is spiritual intelligence that makes an ordinary person a genius. When a genius loses his spiritual intelligence, he becomes quite ordinary.

~ Awdhesh Singh

Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.

~ Hafiz

Business ideas are like those flying dragons in Avatar. First you have to find one, let it choose you, then be brave enough to ride it.

~ Ryan Lilly

Creation pulls something from an abyss of nothing. Startups take the something & give it to those in the dark, at first, perhaps, for nothing.

~ Ryan Lilly

Creation pulls something from an abyss of nothing. Startups take the something and give it to those in the dark, at first, perhaps, for nothing.

~ Ryan Lilly

Consuming the content and culture of creatives does not make one a creative. Creating makes a creative.

~ Ryan Lilly

We are doing the most important possible work in the world when we open the door and reveal our creative nature. It is the work of the Universe itself.

~ Jacob Nordby

This is a hard truth for some to accept: that a lack of resources may not be their true constraint, just a lack of resourcefulness.

~ David Burkus

Suppression of love or hatred creates conflict.

~ Bryant Mcgill

ARE YOU A MOVIE STAR?Prerequisite for Laziness: Creativity, award winning actor/actress, convincing speech

~ Kamil Ali

Creativity is a team sport.

~ David Burkus

In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?

~ Robert Henri

We create in people through our actions and example. In this way people around us become reflections of our own behavioral patterns and internal energies

~ Bryant Mcgill

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists.

~ Émile Zola

The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation.

~ Robert Henri

I have no sympathy with the belief that art is the restricted province of those who paint, sculpt, make music and verse. I hope we will come to an understanding that the material used is only incidental, that there is artist in every man; and that to him the possibility of development and of expression and the happiness of creation is as much a right and as much a duty to himself, as to any of those who work in the especially ticketed ways.

~ Robert Henri

Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer. We have worked hard, but we've hit the wall. We have no idea what to do next.

~ Jonah Lehrer