Creativity quotes
3.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside creativity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"We hold these truths to be self-evident; All people are born creative; Endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right and responsibility to express our creativity for the sake of ourselves and our world."
"As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems."
"I decide every day that I love Creativity enough to accept that Fear will always come with it. And I talk to Fear all the time, speaking to it with love and respect, saying to it: “I know that you are Fear, and that your job is to be afraid. And you do your job really well! I will never ask you to leave me alone or to be silent, because you have a right to speak your own voice, and I know that you will never leave me alone or be silent, anyhow. But I need you to understand that I will always choose Creativity over you."
"Learn your techniques well and be prepared to let them go when you touch the human soul."
"The key question isn't, 'What fosters creativity?' But it is, 'Why isn't everyone creative?'"
"Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster."
"We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution."
"Almost everything I've done, I've done through my own creativity. I don't think I ever had to listen to anyone else to learn how to play drums. I wish I could say that for about ten thousand other drummers."
"I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity, to name a few."
"Creativity is the residue of time wasted."
"The legs are the wheels of creativity."
"When any creativity becomes useful, it is sucked into the vortex of commercialism, and when a thing becomes commercial, it becomes the enemy of man."
"Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
"It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning."
"Creativity is absolutely for everyone. I firmly believe this. I think if you're the driest accountant with the plastic pocket pen protector it's in how you interact with the world. There is artistry in everything that we do and there is expression in everything that we do."
"I will work on myself, since the work on myself is going to be the highest thing I can do for it all, since I understand that as man up-levels his own consciousness, he sees more creative solutions to the problems that he's confronting."
"People are the least creative when fighting the clock... Time pressure stifles creativity because people can't deeply engage with the problem."
"One day's happiness often predicts the next day's creativity."
"Life is about trying things to see if they work."
"I think of myself as Rebecca Wells from Lodi Plantation, in Central Louisiana, a girl who was lucky enough to be born into a family that encouraged creativity and didn't call me lazy or nuts when I dressed up in my mother's peignoirs and played the piano, having painted a small sign decorated in glitter that read 'The Piano Fairy Girl."
