c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Through the realization of the potentials and possibilities within and outside of you, one connects imagination with reality. What could be becomes so.
— Darrell Calkins, Re: [Kindle Edition]
Through the realization of the potentials and possibilities within and outside of you, one connects imagination with reality. What could be becomes so. You transform what exists, causing not only its evolution, but determining to a large part the course of its evolution. It’s a kind of alchemy in that what you create has not existed before, you give birth to other potentials and possibilities, which continues and expands the program. Perhaps more importantly, the very core of existence is touched and celebrated, that being creation itself.
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
There are so many stereotypes, prepackaged concepts and platitudes out there in our thinking on the divine, and the associated emotions those produce; it’s very difficult to transcend. But that’s ultimately what experiencing the divine is all about: transcending stereotypes, concepts and platitudes. As soon as one falls back on an acceptable definition or understanding, it disappears. It’s like water; the moment you try to grasp it, you lose it.
— Darrell Calkins
The purest definition of “religious” is: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality.
— Darrell Calkins
Resolution of conflicting interests within each of us—the desire to fulfill a personal purpose versus the desire to forget about it and just go have fun, for example—takes time and focus and application of a lot of qualities, like playing a difficult piece of music with two hands on the piano. Many people are looking for a simple pill to make that apparent dichotomy go away. Once they discover it doesn’t exist, it’s very frustrating.
— Darrell Calkins
In the quest for a functional and direct interaction between imagination and reality, and the evolution of them both, there is in place a natural resistance, which I have referred to as Creative Resistance, because it demands just that: creativity. Much of this calls for redefining, or refining, one’s relationship with time, and all the qualities and skills that will only come from engaging time more creatively and effectively. As such, part of the bargain is about acquiescing to a rhythm that is subtler and has more definite purpose to it than one’s subjective preferences.
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
The seed of all this is imagination. But when you think of imagination, it helps to view it more as it exists in the rest of nature, rather than as we tend to see it in humans. That is, that imagination is actual and a need, immediately searches for expression, and con- sequently, is intimately connected to yearning and its instantaneous application. This is also the case in human beings, but we generally associate it with unnecessary, or extra, expression, such as an ability to make something more attractive or stimulating (the current view of art, for example), or the creative use of “free time” (time left over after you have done what you had to do).
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
In an animal’s or a plant’s expression of imagination (let’s leave out the rest for now, so we don’t have to deal with the question of consciousness in, for example, minerals), there is always purity in the connection between need and evolution. That which is created is a response to reality and very specific, essential concerns. This then is the origin of the union between what is so and mysterious harmony—truth and beauty. The bridge between them is inspired intuition and the actions it causes. Or, imagination causes inspiration causes intuition causes beauty, which then causes imagination again…
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
One could make a nice link between imagination and spirit. To make that link, all we need is some inspiration. Essentially, imagination has the innate potential to compel or inspire and to set in motion causation. That’s why it exists.
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
Preceding the birth of every religion, there was someone who was an incarnation of this process: imagination causes inspiration causes intuition causes beauty, which causes imagination…the dynamic that takes place in the dimension of spirit. That is, for whatever reasons that will remain mysterious, although they are suggested in various schools of thought, someone got the cause thing down right, and the rest flowed. After the fact, an effort was made, almost always by others, to control both the impact of this and the possible benefits from it. Ambition and desire took over. Where you had an exact presentation, or manifestation, of beauty and truth, somebody began using it for other purposes.
— Darrell Calkins, Re:
Group idea sessions rarely work. Why? Members too busy knocking down insights to hear the tap-tap of revelation
— Phillip Gary Smith
These five values are the organic origins of what could be called intuitive conscience. They are also what we experience personally as our core, essential yearnings, however distorted or confused we may interpret them: to care and be cared for; to share equally in freedom and responsibility; to belong, and to trust that what we belong to will continue; that there exists an objective hierarchy of virtue and wisdom; that there exists that which is unquestionably sacred or divine.
— Darrell Calkins
We survive largely because of the existence and recognition of high-end qualities—compassion, integrity, courage, humility, etc. These are how we perceive spirit. Even the most cynical and fatalistic bastard will snap out of self-absorption, abuse and hopelessness when confronted by an extreme expression of any one of these qualities. (Case studies show that this also applies even to rapists and murderers, not always, but more so than any other technique or therapy.) That is, beyond belief, the desire to feel good, or even hope or despair, there does exist an essential intuitive value system in each of us. This runs through and across every culture, and even every species. I don’t believe that those intuitive values are there to fool us into occupying ourselves so as to feel good while waiting for the inevitable to happen. Nature is not so decadent. Or cynical.
— Darrell Calkins
Great souls, Great stories.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
What is it that we do here? By easing away from the mania that pulls on us, recalling and reconnecting with our essential spirit and callings, we regenerate our core inspiration and faith in Life and our place within it…with a purposeful eye toward facilitating evolution toward ‘More capable human beings,’ meaning grander, freer, more authentic and meaningfully effective.How do we do that? By delving into pockets of rituals that have, across traditions and cultures, produced superior forms of insight and understanding, healing, evolution and resolution. One could call these tunnels into beauty, truth and love. And we can find access to them in any given day of our lives.
— Darrell Calkins
My personal sense of presence that I kind of carry around with me is along the lines of “Somebody has to be there first before acting.” The more one is there, the better the results in whatever you’re doing — more precision, subtlety, relevance…and much less dispersion and depletion. When you watch someone who is good at this, you can sometimes feel like they’re actually stretching out the walls of possibility in a given situation, literally creating open space. Much of this comes only through time and experience, eventual understanding that how one does something, not the specifics of action, is what impacts others most.
— Darrell Calkins
My hope and intent is to provide a wide range of resources and ideas that provoke real questions and considerations under the surface of common dialogue. With a definite thrust toward clues for moving beyond limiting patterns that restrict our personal and communal evolution and experience of, as well as effectiveness in, life. Part of that is about giving different angles of insight into the why and how of developing skills, whatever they may be. I think the larger discussion, or maybe the more relevant one surrounding skills development, involves what quality of fuel is being used to run the skill. Inevitably, and very quickly, this enters into considerations of how much of oneself one brings to the show. For example, anyone can learn a sophisticated skill in an extremely short period of time, once they’re completely convinced of the need, benefit and value of doing so and find enough full-bodied conviction to engage it accordingly (“You never hear anyone practicing a language; they simply listen and then begin to speak.” — Wade Davis).
— Darrell Calkins
There’s a tunnel between our external skill sets and our deepest longings and passions. People with the highest developed skills always know how to traverse that tunnel. That is, personal integration and wholeness — and consequent accomplishment and fulfillment — are largely about “enlightening” the tool with the best we have in us. The tool could be anything — a voice or body, a musical instrument or paint brush, a trowel or computer. But skill is made up of capability, and that requires practiced familiarity over time with how to inject into the moment our unique talents, virtues and qualities.
— Darrell Calkins
Recent discoveries in developmental psychology and other behavioral disciplines have shown that babies are born with a “first draft” of a moral mind. Among others, brain scientist, Gary Marcus, has described this moral understanding as “already defined and organized before experience.” Evolutionary psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, describes this first draft of the moral mind as consisting of five primary values. Modern cross-cultural anthropologists point to these same five primary values as the foundation of all cultures, currently and historically, and 21st century ethologists suggest the same values apply to most if not all species.
— Darrell Calkins
There is something mysterious yet definitely accessible to us all under the agitated waves of difficulty that allows us to feel and flow along a more comprehensive intuitive and spiritual understanding of true meaning. And to find solace, accepting serenity and even beauty within it.
— Darrell Calkins
It’s misleading or deceptive in a way that such skills are learned like any other — simple practice, sincere investment over time. Yes, like small steps, one at a time, to cross the bridge. Just a single step today.
— Darrell Calkins
The sweet spot is a term used by audiophiles and recording engineers to describe the focal point between two sources of sound, where an individual is fully capable of hearing the audio mix the way it was intended to be heard by the musicians. Different static methods exist to broaden the area of the sweet spot.Sound engineers also refer to the sweet spot of any sound-producing body that may be captured with a microphone. Every individual instrument and voice has its own sweet spot, the perfect location to place the microphone or microphones in order to obtain the best sound.In tennis, baseball, or cricket, a given swing will result in a more powerful impact if the ball strikes the racquet or bat on the sweet spot, where a combination of factors results in a maximum response for a given amount of effort. The actual sweet spot on a racquet or bat is a very small area, where dispersing vibrations and spin in multiple directions are canceled out, resulting in a perfect contact point between incoming and outgoing energies.
— Darrell Calkins
I don’t really consider myself to be a teacher, although I understand that others do. There’s a certain restriction or reduction in that stereotype that doesn’t ring true. Especially the underlying assumption that I know something that others don’t, and my job is to give them what I know. That’s simply not true.
— Darrell Calkins
We do have some capacity to determine how things evolve, and how we evolve, individually and as a community or race. That’s a tremendous freedom and a tremendous responsibility.
— Darrell Calkins
Whether or not we personally do impact some ultimate evolution beyond ourselves, we can definitely influence what happens today. To choose to waste a day, or a lifetime, is opposed to the essential spirit of life, expressed, sacrificed for, and upheld through every perceivable interaction in nature. It’s also opposed to every human expression of spirit throughout history. We know to live up to our potential, to fulfill the trust of creation by moving forward, even if we don’t believe it or feel like it or know why.
— Darrell Calkins
The primary reason that I’m not a representative of specific groups or schools of thought is that that choice gives me the freedom to look at these groups and thoughts from the inside and the outside. I’m trying to be honest in that role—what really works here and what does not? That is, I have nothing to sell or win by any given position. I’m promoting a similar process for any person I interact with in my work, including toward me.Investment in a given idea or group tends to immediately shut down options for perception, and then choice. Prejudice, bigotry and arrogance breed from that. One is forced to think a certain way to stay within the group or thought, and then to defend against apparent opposition. This constructs and feeds the kinds of adamant separation and conflict we see so many manifestations of on every level. In many cases, it’s also the cause of deep internal conflict in most individuals, yet it isn’t really addressed.
— Darrell Calkins
There are some things that don’t function as one would assume. For example, the impulse and linear thinking associated with the search for happiness most often produce questions like, “What’s in it for me?” or “How do I get what I want?” Paradoxically, if you will, that very question pushes authentic happiness away. Now, to try to explain that to someone in such a way that they hear and are interested by the idea is going to probably involve some paradox and non-linearity.
— Darrell Calkins
Freedom and responsibility themselves are at stake. One does not find freedom or enact responsibility by surrendering to another’s conceptualization of these ideas. Living out the rules of conscience laid down by someone else for the attainment of an unquestioned goal, a freedom designed and articulated by someone else, is the surrender of human imagination and intuition.In the more extreme versions of this, we end up with a collective momentum resulting in events such as Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, the Inquisition, or similar events recently in Africa and elsewhere. That comes from allocating one’s conscience to someone else, not attending to one’s own deeper intuitive sense of right and wrong.
— Darrell Calkins
Each religion has provided a tremendous service in defining elements of conscience. They have made it possible for us to live together in a society, to work toward common goals, and to learn how to accept or tolerate relative opposition to our own opinions. I also think that this has been done much as a parent needs to provide a similar service for an adolescent. Internal and external conflict requires discipline to organize and structure some form of minimizing the chaos imposed on others.
— Darrell Calkins
There is a pivot point, however, to become an adult. That transition comes from recognizing and acting in accordance with your own deepest impulses. On the responsibility front, that means acting in harmony with your conscience, not because you’re going to be punished if you don’t, or paid for it if you do (heaven, enlightenment, salvation, or whatever), but because you know it to be right. On the freedom front, that means acquiescing to your deepest inspirations, following what truly compels you, even when it’s difficult to do so. These two principles brought together in the same time and space is what integrity is all about. And it is only through such integrity that you resolve conflict between the two of them: what you “know to do” and what you “want to do.
— Darrell Calkins
Whether or not one believes in the accelerating dangers of the climate crisis, the end of fossil fuels, or the permanent annihilation of species of plants, insects and animals that essentially cover our ass by maintaining an inconceivably complex environment in which we have the freedom and responsibility to do pretty much whatever we’d like, it’s not too difficult to at least perceive the dangers of heightened tensions between cultures that now, for the first time, have the power to annihilate each other or the entire planet.
— Darrell Calkins
We all understand the value of sacrifice, even if that only involves setting aside dessert so as to lose weight, or putting money in the bank so as to later buy a house. Progress or achievement in any arena requires choices that often oppose what one feels like doing. The trick in truly succeeding with this in the long run is locating enough depth of feeling that the experience of conflicting desires dissolves. For that to happen, one has to learn how to think emotionally and physiologically.
— Darrell Calkins
Traditional stoicism, indifference to pleasure or pain, is a form of imposing conscience so as to block more immediate desires. The problem is that it eventually collapses on itself because natural emotional and physiological impulses are being ignored or repressed. To pass beyond that dichotomy—”I want to eat ice cream, and yet I don’t”—requires conceiving and creating an integrated mind in which our passions and childlike impulses find expression through conscience. In other words, what we feel like doing and what we “should” do become one and the same.
— Darrell Calkins
We don’t know how to feel with conscience. Ideas like integrity or devotion remain abstract, theoretically correct and good, but lacking the ability to produce immediately fulfilling emotions or sensations. What I mean by learning to think emotionally and physiologically is rediscovering the visceral joy of investing in what we already love, the kind of unquestioned spiritual relentlessness we had as kids. As adults, that demands an internal dialogue through which we transpose the search for pleasure onto a platform that is in harmony with our conscience and real responsibilities. We find the pleasure in applied conscience. That’s a lot easier than it sounds. Basically, it’s about recognizing and feeling passion for what we really want to do in our lives.
— Darrell Calkins
On those who try to make me their guru or master, my approach is to start destroying that from the first moment we meet. It probably seems naive and idealistic, but I rely on basic, old-fashioned qualities in keeping my interactions clean: integrity, chivalry, honesty. In my experience, it’s not that difficult to eliminate the guru paradigm and stereotype, if one really wants to. Finally, it comes down to simply not accepting a role or the associated temptations offered.
— Darrell Calkins
General attitude and outlook—the way we perceive and experience anything—is more influenced by our physical state than anything other single factor. I’d guess that for most of us, at least 50% of our struggles and discontent are brought on by being physically out of balance. The causes of that imbalance are many, but at the core, there’s an insensitivity or inability to locate and maneuver essential physical processes within us: how to breathe, how to sit, stand and walk, how to see and hear, how to slow down or speed up, how to relax, how to sleep, how to eat, how to adjust our physiological responses to the different circumstances we find ourselves within. This kind of removal or abstraction from our physicality causes an enormous amount of problems on many levels. One key result of it is a distrust in our own ability to influence our emotional state and our energy and perspectives in general; we often feel that we can’t get our hands on the control switches, as if most of life just happens and we can’t do much about it.
— Darrell Calkins
On an even subtler dimension, clarity, intuitive knowledge and contentment are primarily determined by chemical and hormonal balances in the body and brain. Most of this is entirely manipulable through fairly simple physical exercises that anyone can do.
— Darrell Calkins
In my work, I try to create situations in which we take ideas, information, experiences and qualities to a pragmatic arena. Then within those, to relearn or experiment with how we respond to internal and external variables. There’s no point to understanding something but remaining incapable of applying it. I think real knowledge and understanding is experiential, and the easiest way to access those is through our physical being.
— Darrell Calkins
Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
War is ruthless murder, yet it is justifiable only when a country is defending its turf from outside intruders. To convince soldiers to attack another country for no other reason than greed or strategic positioning requires creativity. And most of the time, soldiers do not really know whether they are on the side of the attackers or the defenders. This is where people misunderstand war. When you attack another country for its resources, you are the pirate. But when you protect your country from the pirates, you are the hero.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
An unpublished writer should doubt themselves. They should constantly wonder whether what they’re creating has merit. And then, having doubted, they should take up their pen and see if they can’t make it better.
— Johnny Rich
Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody "a creative person" is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the sense for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it.If you're alive, you're a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers--these are our common ancestors.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
He was surrounded by love, and he used that power to create.
— Suzanne Young, Poet Anderson ...of Nightmares
True art comes from the anonymous self.
— Maria Riike
If you don't follow through on your creative ideas, someone else will pick them up and use them. When you get an idea of this sort, you should jump in with both feet, not just stick your toe in the water… Be daring, be fearless, and don't be afraid that somebody is going to criticize you or laugh at you. If your ego is not involved no-one can hurt you.
— Guru R.H.H.
If you cannot live with hope and create with intention or be kind to a stranger, bury your head. You are not living at all.
— Dawn Garcia
Fashion is simply a guideline for style-less people to appear stylish.
— Criss Jami, Healology
Why do you paint, Nona?"...'I paint first to honor God who paints the sunsets and oceans and human hearts. And second, I paint so I don't get cranky like so many of the old people in this world.
— Kimberly Stuart, Operation Bonnet
Creative energy is sacred and divine. Those who are exploring their creativity in the world are ultimately exploring their relationship with all that is sacred.
— Gia Combs-Ramirez, The Way of Transformation: Discovering The Divine Map to Unlock Your Highest Potential
Artists are not in delusion, they only recreate the hidden side
— Farid F. Ibrahim
Do what you love to do, and do it with both seriousness and lightness. At least then you will know that you have tried and that--whatever the outcome--you have traveled a noble path.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Consider, for a moment, how profound is an education: every human-made object in the world is the result of one. Every car, computer, particle accelerator, thatched hut, hairstyle, soufflé, piano concerto. These are the products not only of the skilled hands and nimble minds of their creators, but the result of whole traditions and systems of education. Change education, and you change the world.
— Zander Sherman, The Curiosity of School: Education and the Dark Side of Enlightenment
Creativity is always a leap of faith. Writers sit down in front of empty pages. Painters stare before blank easels. Thespians rehearse looking toward empty stages. Creativity is experimental by nature.
— Brian D'Ambrosio, From Haikus to Hatmaking: One Year in the Life of Western Montana
Imagination is a divine creativity.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Creativity is an inherently human trait that allowed us to dominate our environment and make our way to the top of the food chain.
— Harry Hoover, Born Creative: Free Your Mind, Free Yourself
How many geniuses die undiscovered, not only by others but, more sadly, by themselves?
— Joyce Wycoff
Imagination is a spark of a divine light.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
We are all just beginners here, and we shall all die beginners.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
As the story grew, it put down roots into the past and threw out unexpected branches .
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
When the lyrical muse sings the creative pen dances.
— Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays
I'm back in these regions of fumbling dark uncertain creation, but it's my one and only world, and I'll do the best I can.
— Jack Kerouac, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954
Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.
— Patti Smith
There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator
Curiosity takes ignorance seriously, and is confident enough to admit when it does not know. It is aware of not knowing, and it sets out to do something about it
— Alain de Botton, Art as Therapy
Your desire to make art -- beautiful or meaningful or emotive art -- is integral to your sense of who you are.
— David Bayles and Ted Orland
If you are open to change and welcome surprise, you know the secret of creativity and the secret of life.
— Chloe Thurlow, Katie in Love
… mess is the material from which life and creativity are built …
— Ralph D. Stacey
A true conversation is a co-creation.
— Sarah Rozenthuler, Life-Changing Conversations: 7 Strategies for Talking About What Matters Most
Laziness builds walls and fences that keep the mind under control.
— Auliq Ice
Obsession is like a pretty, little, picket fence that offers itself up as a thin line--a separation between ingenuity and insanity.
— S. D. Lawendowski
A scattered mind will produce scattered results.
— Dana Gore
The fact that you have started a small business doesn't mean you should be thinking small. Think BIG! Start Small! Expand your territories!
— Bernard Kelvin Clive
Learn to work on your work.
— David Bayles and Ted Orland
Anxiety is experiencing failure in advance. Tell yourself enough vivid stories about the worst possible outcome of your work and you’ll soon come to believe them. Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn’t make you better.
— Seth Godin
When they were in school, Peter used to say that everything you do is a self-portrait. It might look like 'Saint George and the Dragon' or 'The Rape of the Sabine Women,' but the angle you use, the lighting, the composition, the technique, they're all you. You are every color and brushstroke.
— Chuck Palahniuk
The quality of your ideas 'your actual thoughts' determines your success more than you think.
— Auliq Ice
Life is an adventure I am enjoying creating.
— Jay Woodman
Above and beyond all else it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought in the life of the hater, so that his resourcefulness becomes completely focused on the negative aspects of his environment. The urgent needs of the personality for creative expression are starved to death. A man's horizon may become so completely dominated by the intense character of his hatred that there remains no creative residue in his mind and spirit to give to great ideas, to great concepts.
— Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as do the ordinary people, but to fulfill it in its true potential - the imagination.
— Lawrence Durrell, Justine
Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see.
— Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Positive energy is unleashed when leaders give themselves permission to connect and express themselves from the core of who they are. When leaders practice authenticity, creativity, engagement, confidence, and a sense of inner resourcefulness emerge.
— Henna Inam, Wired for Authenticity: Seven Practices to Inspire, Adapt, & Lead
Rather than being medicalized or romanticized, mental disorders, or mental dis-eases, should be understood as nothing less or more than what they are, an expression of our deepest human nature. By recognizing their traits in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able both to contain them and to put them to good use. This is, no doubt, the highest form of genius.
— Neel Burton, The Meaning of Madness
Creativity expands the mind, stretches it beyond ordinary human comprehension, resulting in the mind being elastic and capable of transcending and discerning complex ideas.
— Michael Bassey Johnson, The Infinity Sign
Authenticity is our natural state of being. The authentic self is a state of being where we are centered, creative, adaptive, and inspired.
— Henna Inam, Wired for Authenticity: Seven Practices to Inspire, Adapt, & Lead
It isn't enough to pick a path—you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, "explored the neighborhood." The key point here is that even if you decide you're in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place.
— Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
I'm not saying that French books are talented, and intelligent, and noble. They don't satisfy me either. But they're less boring than the Russian ones, and not seldom one finds in them the main element of creative work––a sense of personal freedom, which Russian authors don't have. I can't remember a single new book in which the author doesn't do his best, from the very first page, to entangle himself in all possible conventions and private deals with his conscience. One is afraid to speak of the naked body, another is bound hand and foot by psychological analysis, a third must have "a warm attitude towards humanity," a fourth purposely wallows for whole pages in descriptions of nature, lest he be suspected of tendentiousness... One insists on being a bourgeois in his work, another an aristocrat, etc. Contrivance, caution, keeping one's own counsel, but no freedom nor courage to write as one wishes, and therefore no creativity.- A Boring Story
— Anton Chekhov, Selected Stories
To imagine is to spark beauty in our thoughts.
— Emilyann Girdner
Give today the gifts of creativity and productivity, and it would reward you with a better tomorrow.
We want to bring light into media, we always keep that into mind... the message of love and goodness that still exists in the world...
— Isabel Ruiz Lucero
A large majority of our respondents were inspired by a tension in their domain that became obvious when looked at from the perspective of another domain. Even though they do not think of themselves as interdisciplinary, their best work bridges realms of ideas. Their histories tend to cast doubt on the wisdom of overspecialization, where bright young people are trained to become exclusive experts in one field and shun breadth like the plague.
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Dreams are fuel for creation.
— Joseph Hunt
When you get right down to it, lots of things that look fancy are easy to do, and lots of things that seem easy are hard, even if you're very creative and a good artist.
— Nancy Freund, Mailbox: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith
To flourish in any field of activity you need to gain a deep understanding of it.
— Rod Judkins, The Art of Creative Thinking
Great things often come from actions and decisions taken by others, that are deemed wild, stupid or unreasonable at the time, but later prove to be very useful.
— Innocent Mwatsikesimbe, The Reason
Creativity is at the root of excitement.
— Lawren Leo, Love's Shadow: Nine Crooked Paths
The epiphany in this thought is that we simply cannot and do not create in isolation. As I paint my blank canvas others leave their mark on my masterpiece. Many have added colors and textures I knew not existed, greatly improving my creation..and yet...and yet... There are those who have punctured the fine leather and scraped at the rainbows of my mind ... creating stormy patches where there were once colors beaming from the page.
— Bella Vespira
IThe epiphany in this thought is that we simply cannot and do not create in isolation. As I paint my blank canvas others leave their mark on my masterpiece. Many have added colors and textures I knew not existed, greatly improving my creation..and yet...and yet... There are those who have punctured the fine leather and scraped at the rainbows of my mind ... creating stormy patches where there were once colors beaming from the page.
— Bella Vespira
Silence leads us back to our purpose, and it ignites creativity and vision.
— Angela Lynne Craig, Pivot Leadership: Small Steps...Big Change
Freedom gives room for creativity.
— Paul Bamikole
The painter knew that color was not something you controlled but something you set free. He believed that color knew its way home.
— Thomas Lloyd Qualls, Waking Up at Rembrandt's
As a soul, you have the freedom – and earned responsibility – to transpose your personal process of evolution, to manifest your greatest talents and vision, into the work that matters to you most as a means to personal redemption.
— Darrell Calkins
It’s frustration which makes creativity possible.
— Hanif Kureishi, The Last Word
There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books....My mind is a body that's a mind.
— Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
Words are the residue that I was there, that I loved my wife, that I kissed my children goodnight, that I sacrificed my life for them. Words are a curse. Life is a curse. Words escape life. Life escapes words. What in God's name am I? How does someone name a God? What is it to name yourself?
— Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
You can't use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.
— Maya Angelou
Forgiveness is really about absolution: to set free. But if you look carefully at the dynamic, the one you’re setting free is yourself.
— Darrell Calkins
The future is a direction, not a destination.
— Edwin Catmull
Eyesight can be so blinding. We need to look beyond the face of things.
— Fennel Hudson, A Writer's Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 3
If you don’t practice presence, you never learn how to have busyness facilitate accomplishment.
— Darrell Calkins
To the inexperienced and naive, creativity often looks like magic. But in truth creativity is rooted in the fertile grounds of knowledge and many hours of hard work and thinking.
— Jurgen Appelo, Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders
I make NO apologies for my creativity.
— Jason Medina
Creativity never disappoints".
— Mary-Ellen Peters
Writing is a form of art. Do not use New Times Roman or Arial because it's boring and hackneyed.
— Natalya Vorobyova
Human beings are not separate from nature. We are nature. The beauty of the sunset is your own beauty. The power of the ocean is your power. We are inseparable from the beauty of the mountains, rivers, and forests that surround us. The more that you can allow your natural self to come out – to honour your natural beauty, your natural creativity, your natural thirst for leadership and compassion – the happier and healthier you’ll be.
— Vironika Tugaleva
Creativity and spirituality function on the same side of the brain. If that is true, it is quite reasonable and natural for them to function together. The prophets and mystics we're obviously aware of this connection. p. 23.
— David Brazzeal, Pray Like a Gourmet: Creative Ways to Feed Your Soul
We can create transcending stories for readers and for us. Creativity is a double edge sword, which can kill the writer.
— Rossana Condoleo
There’s no such thing as writer’s block, so long as you’ve had plenty of time to think about what you want to write.
— Fennel Hudson, A Writer's Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 3
That thing you’re afraid of? That label you shy away from? That word that seems too bold? That audacious goal? The life you think you don’t deserve? Aren’t talented enough to have? Aren’t brave enough to claim? Fuck. That. Shit. None of that baggage you’ve been carrying around has a place this year. Kick to the the curb. Now. This year only has space for the bold and the audacious and the brave. Don’t try to convince me you are not those things. I know better and your excuses hold no weight here. You are brave and bold and audacious and one hell of a goddess. Always have been. Always will be. So fill every step you take with intention. Then remember that intention is worthless without action—so get a move on, sugar
— Jeanette LeBlanc
They slow your brain down," he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. "They iron out all the wrinkles...Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..."They break your brain like a horse, so it takes all your orders. I need a break that can break away, you know? I need to think. If I can't think, who am I?
— Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
Individuality and creativity are slowly dampened by a normal job with normal people.
— Fennel Hudson, A Waterside Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 2
Deal resistance a death blow and make sweet love to your art all night long. Put on your fishnet thigh highs and your patent leather stilettos and your special occasion lingerie. Seduce the hell out of your own creative soul. It’s time for an epic lap dance. Dance for your paint and canvas, for fingers tripping across keyboard, for the open arms of motherhood, for the layers of flavor in the meals you create. Wind your hips down for the click of the shutter, for the 3 a.m. bathroom poem, for the late night lesson planning
— Jeanette LeBlanc
You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re not open to the possibility of a glorious accident.
— Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
Write them all down. The mistakes and the blessings and the places you cracked in two. Write the prayers and the tantrums. The sacred and the profane. The open roads and the closed doors. Nothing is permanent.
— Jeanette LeBlanc
I am an artist. Any artist knows that their creations, their pieces must express an array of human emotion and experience. From the juvenile and innocent, to the erotic and the dangerous, and everything in between. Because Life is all of these things and more. It is the artist's divine purpose to reflect what Experience has shown them and others. What truly sets us apart from each other is whether or not we truly know ourselves enough to reflect objectively; but, through our own unique 'voice'.
— Solange nicole
The key to flow is to pursue an activity for its own sake, not for the rewards it brings."--(psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the state of being he calls "flow")
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
They slow your brain down," he said, clutching an orange bottle of pills. "They iron out all the wrinkles...Maybe all the bad stuff happens in the wrinkles, but all the good stuff does, too..."They break your brain like a horse, so it takes all your orders. I need a brain that can break away, you know? I need to think. If I can't think, who am I?
— Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
I admit to being prone to deep thinking, which – given that I’m emerging from dark times – can take me to some very sombre or profound places. But this is no bad thing. I always resurface wiser and with a way of viewing things that is different to before.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
All creative work begins as play. The more one plays, the better one works.
— Marty Rubin
In the example of the navigator, no writing was essential to draw the meaning of observing the object at a distance from the ship. In the real theobservation has been noted and that is enough to give it a meaning, a subjective meaning, a meaning exclusively important for the navigator himself.
— Anuradha Bhattacharyya, The Lacanian Author
The phrases “I am not…” has a great creative power. When you tell yourself “I am not…”, remember you have just created something. Be careful of whom you say you are not; you will never be such a person! You are not a loser!
— Israelmore Ayivor, Daily Drive 365
The greatest moments of creativity come in absolute solitude, when one’s mind is free from distraction and able to probe the depths of the impossible.
— Fennel Hudson, A Waterside Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 2
True laziness is the commitment to decrease work and increase efficiency
—  reduce burden and boost creativity
Leave Your Comfort Zone, If You Want To Accomplish Something.
— Palash Chowdhury
At first the creative mind submits to its entry into the symbolic register and gets itself structured like everyone else. Then he balks at a fateful moment which becomes a turning point in the history of his mental growth. From the entry into the imaginary order where he acknowledges his ego and then to the symbolic order where he recognizes his place in the society and finally in his de-symbolization or a refusal to obey the Law that is the rules of the world of symbols, a creative genius is born.
— Anuradha Bhattacharyya, The Lacanian Author
Ingenuity and creativity, even for a defeating case of two steps forward and one backward, applied strategically can covert a loss into gain.
— Priyavrat Thareja
Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened... Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be... We are apparently on the trail here of some sort of invisible or hidden hand that beneficially hides difficulties from us.
— Albert O. Hirschman
I like working among ‘creative clutter’. It gives me a sense of activity and achievement.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
Doing nothing can be as rewarding as doing something. And doing very little can be as productive, in a creative sense, as doing a lot.
— Fennel Hudson, A Waterside Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 2
You Russians like to think you're poets but perhaps you're just touchy.
— Jack Ryan
A little care and a dash of creativity can transform the simplest items into great expressions of love.
— Narissa Doumani, A Spacious Life: Memoir of a Meditator
The process of creation begins way before one starts writing.
— Fennel Hudson, A Writer's Year - Fennel's Journal - No. 3
Nothing listens as well as a blank page.
— Shaun Hick
It is not enough to be wrong, one must also be polite.
— Niels Bohr
To lose focus means to lose energy. The absolutely wrong thing to attempt when we've lost focus is to rush about struggling to pack it all back together again. Rushing is not the thing to do... Patience, peace and rocking renew ideas. Just holding the idea and the patience to rock it are what some women might call a luxury. Wild Woman says it is a necessity... Take the idea and rock it to and fro. Keep some of it and throw some away, and it will renew itself. You need do no more.
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Creativity isn't a switch that's flicked on or off; it's a way of seeing, engaging and responding to the world around you.
— Rod Judkins, The Art of Creative Thinking
Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don't out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying.
— Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
Genius moves to creation, not to destruction. Only a very few have combined both.
— Edith Hamilton
Creativity and imagination are not frosting on a cake: They are integral to our sustainability. They are survival mechanisms. They are of the essence of who we are. They constitute our deepest empowerment.
— Matthew Fox
The whole world is like an opened candy jar, and we're plunging in for the best treats
— Vicki Alayne Bradley, Finding Home: A Creative Journey on a Trip Around the World
I love the longueurs of a book even if they seem pointless because you can get a peek into the author’s mind, a glimpse of their creative soul.
— E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
Some do not want to create rich experiences for others, others lack the ability to do so, but most just want to experience being rich, with little to no other experience.
— Justin K. McFarlane Beau
Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career: for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free.
— William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
I realized there really is a natural interplay between my spirituality and my creativity. When I enter into a spirit of prayer, I can cultivate a receptive space and actually ask God for creative ideas that will enhance my my praying. Then these creative practices allow me to enter into the spiritual space even more quickly and deeply. The result is a spiraling effect leading to ever-expanding dimensions, encompassing both deeper spirituality and heightened creativity.
— David Brazzeal, Pray Like a Gourmet: Creative Ways to Feed Your Soul
It was as if God had become not only the object of my praise and thanksgiving but my creative partner as well.
— David Brazzeal, Pray Like a Gourmet: Creative Ways to Feed Your Soul
Our suppressing who we are to fit in is exhausting. It kills flow and creativity. It also prevents genuine connection with others.
— Henna Inam, Wired for Authenticity: Seven Practices to Inspire, Adapt, & Lead
A Poet never denies creativity entrance.
— Micheline Jean Louis
Every thought is a creative energy that moves the universe to action.
— Réné Gaudette
Arrogance kills Creativity, Curiosity and Passion. Stop it and you'll learn more.
— Steeven Shaw
Creativity is easy.Originality is difficult.Relevance is a bitch.
— Mark Rude
Creativity is a basic biological drive to engage in meaningful conversations with ourselves & the world around us.
— Sara Saltee
That tingle in the brain is called a word.It bats itself against its fleshy bounds.
— Kate  Kearns, How to Love an Introvert
Perfection is not just about control. It's also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence! Very few have it in them.
— Andres Heinz, Mark Heyman, John J. McLaughlin
Very few great artists feel the giant agony of the world.
— Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way