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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"Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant."
"Great genial power, one would almost say, consists in not being original at all; in being altogether receptive; in letting the world do all, and suffering the spirit of the hour to pass unobstructed through the mind."
"It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide social labor, whena thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse."
"We must learn the language of facts. The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject, if he has no hand to paint them to the senses."
"Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your debts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my word as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or dissipated, or undermined, to all the eclat in the universe. This reality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art."
"The world is young: the former great men call to us affectionately. We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens and the earthly world."
"But it is impossible that the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is never closed,through which the creator passes."
"Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole."
"The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history that unites the doctor, the scientist and the artist into a single notion of care-giving and creativity."
"I try to manage my day by my circadian rhythms because the creativity is such an elusive thing, and I could easily just stomp over it doing my administrative stuff."
"When you're improvising, you're relying on this connection to creativity."
"An improv artist's best instrument is their ability keep their antennae clean so they're able to receive what I call the connection to creativity. It's the thing that you see in any amazing moment that any human being is performing. Whether it's watching Michael Jordan navigating through all these attackers and then suddenly rising up and putting the ball in the most amazing way, or watching an actor on stage playing Shakespeare, but not thinking about the actor anymore or the stage or you or the chair, any of these kinds of moments of transcendence."
"Im pretty lazy when it comes to creativity. I just want it to be easy and fun."
"I don't want to say that the creativity would give out - I can't imagine what argument I would bring forward for that. But I think that there's something on the individual level that's a limitation."
"The trouble with you is that the only way you can communicate is through art. You’ve never learned to communicate your feelings to a man. You don’t even want to communicate in a relationship. You think that if you open up to love, you’ll lose your independence or your self-expression or creativity or whatever you call all that passionate, wonderful stuff that makes you feel alive inside."
"There is always a place in the world for those who are willing to give of their time, energy, capital, creativity, and commitment."
"There's a little burst of creativity being director followed by lots and lots of meetings and talking to people and more meetings. It's scary. And I can't believe anybody actually lets me do it. But it's going well so far."
"Creativity comes from the part of the brain that is veritable soup of experiences, memories and influences. We really don't like to start questioning exactly where it comes from, in case it stops coming."
"Consciousness is, among other things, a spontaneous exercise in creativity."
"I believe that all creativity and consciousness is born in the quality of play, as opposed to work, in the quickened intuitional spontaneity that I see as a constant through all my own existences, and in the experience of those I know."
