This past month we have been exploring the importance of creativity in one’s life. From problem solving, to exploration, to self-expression, being able to embrace that creative part of yourself has endless benefits. But as we’ve uncovered through our features on the subject, it’s an aspect of your personality that is often a challenge to access.
To be creative is to put yourself out there in a very vulnerable way. To show the world something you yourself have created. A daunting exercise for many people. I still have trouble with this, but I’ve grown to understand that the insecure and doubting feelings are only distractions to the payoff of being able to express yourself. This is a lesson learned by the greatest creative minds in history, so let their words inspire you the embrace that part of you and create.
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things” – Ray Bradbury
“Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.” ― Deepak Chopra
“The painter has the Universe in his mind and hands.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” – Salvador Dali
“My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” – Miles Davis
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein
“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking” – Albert Einstein
“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm
“You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” – Steve Jobs
“Creative power is mightier than its possessor.” ― C.G. Jung
“To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.” – Akira Kurosawa
“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London
“All good work requires self-revelation.” – Sidney Lumet
“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try” – Dr. Seuss
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will” – George Bernard Shaw
“The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.” – Edith Södergran
“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.” – Nikola Tesla
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order” – Virginia Woolf