Creativity and Thinking quotations
Charles Cave
Here are some quotations relevant to the topic of "creativity"
and "thinking".
They can also be found on the Creativity Web Pages at
http://www.unidata.com/~ucc01/creative.htm
I am collecting quotations for these web pages, so please
post or email your favourite quotations!
Charles Cave
Sydney, Australia
cha...@jolt.mpx.com.au
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Theodore Adorno
A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a
spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony
negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised,
in its innermost structure.
Source: Goldfayl, David
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Anonymous
When-ever fear strikes the heart of innocent civilians, Where-ever the
call of duty takes him, he's there, With his helpful hints and deep
wisdom.
Source: Jeffrey Watkins (watk...@cs.curtin.edu.au)
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W. H. Auden
To ask the hard question is simple.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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J. M. Barrie
I'm not young enough to know everything.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Basho
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what
they sought.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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William Blake
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to
man as it is, infinite.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's. I will not
reason and compare; My business is to create.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Jacob Bronowski
We have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action,
not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye... The
hand is the cutting edge of the mind
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Frank Capra
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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James Carswell
Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap, nature immediately
comes up with a better mouse.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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John Cassavetes
No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative,
you're keeping the man-child alive.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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G. K. Chesterton
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the
peak.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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I Ching
When the way comes to an end, then change - having changed, you pass
through.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Jules Combarie
Music is the art of thinking with sounds.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Oliver Cromwell
No one travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.
Source: Goldfayl, David
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Charles Dickens
The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly
this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is
constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.
Source: Gilbert Keith Chesterton in Pickwick Papers
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Thomas Edison
Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent
perspiration.
Source: Dictionary of Quotations, Collins Gem
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Albert Einstein
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of
eighteen.
Source: Dictionary of Quotations, Collins Gem
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds
Source: g...@ix.netcom.com (Gene Levinson)
1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.
2. From discord, find harmony.
3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity
(Three rules of work)
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Henry Ford
Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're
absolutely right.
Source: rou...@server.uwindsor.ca (Paul Rousseau)
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E. M. Forster
In the creative state a man is taken out of himself. He lets down as
it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which
is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal
experiences and out of the mixture he makes a work of art.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Julies Sextus Frontinus
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for
further development.
Source: Highly regarded engineer in Rome 1st C A.D.
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Ursula K. Le Guin
It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey
that matters, in the end
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Ernest Hemingway
You lose it if you talk about it.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Heraclitus
One cannot step twice into the same river.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Dean William R. Inge
What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Steve Jobs
You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the tools to let
people become their best.
Source:
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Alfred Korzbyski
The map is not the territory
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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James Russell Lowell
In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; A grass-blade's no easier
to make than an oak.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Thomas Macaulay
It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot
exist together in their highest perfection.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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W. Somerset Maugham
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more
powerful in the mature than in the young.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Paul McCartney
I used to thing anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that
it is the people that call others weird that are weird.
Source: Jeffrey Watkins (watk...@cs.curtin.edu.au)
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Yaqui Mystic
To be a man of knowledge one needs to be light and fluid
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Isaac Newton
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Source: Dictionary of Quotations, Collins Gem
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Cesare Pavese
The only joy in the world is to begin.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Pablo Picasso
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
I do not seek. I find. (Je ne cherche pas; je trouve)
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Chinese Proverb
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Ned Rorem
Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never
experienced.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Zen saying
Be master of mind rather than mastered by mind.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Jonathan Schattke
Neccesity is the mother of invention, it is true -- but it's father is
creativity, and knowledge is the midwife.
Source: wiz...@ripco.com (Jonathan Schattke)
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Artur Schnabel
The notes I handle no better than many pianists, But the pauses
between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides!
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Stephen Sondheim
Musical comedies aren't written, they are re-written.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Saul Steinberg
The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by
boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
Doodling is the brooding of the mind.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Tom Stoppard
Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Igor Stravinsky
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my
mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to
founts of wisdom and knowledge.
Source:
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Shunryu Suzuki
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the
expert's mind there are few
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Publilius Syrus
The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Russian Fairy Tale
Go - not knowing where. Bring - not knowing what. The path is long,
the way unknown
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Henry Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, Simplify
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Voltaire
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Andrei Voznesensky
The art of creation is older than the art of killing.
Source: Harper Book of Quotations, Harper 1993
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Simone Weil
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be
attained only by someone who is detached.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Eudora Welty
I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be
daring as wel. For all serious daring starts from within.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Alfred North Whitehead
We think in generalities, but we live in detail
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
The "silly question" is the first intimation of some totally new
development.
Source: Little Zen Companion, Schiller.
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Updated on Sunday, 19 March 1995