Quotes about Creativity

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working.

Si je crois en Dieu? Oui, quand je travaille. Quand je suis soumis et modeste, je me sens tellement aidé par quelqu'un qui me fait faire des choses qui me surpassent.

The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

My life has been the poem I would have writ, But I could not both live and utter it.

The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

An idea is not necessarily good because it is old, or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost any one can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.

The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.

The man who perceives life only with his eye, his ear, his hand, and his tongue, is but little higher than the ox or an intelligent dog; but he who has imagination sees things around and above him, as the angels see them.

All our other faculties seem to have the brown touch of earth upon them, but the imagination carries the very livery of heaven, and is God's self in the soul.

Every man is full of music; but it is not every man that knows how to bring it out.

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.

The imagination is the only part of us that cannot be shackled. It is the irreducible essence of who we are, and it is that which allows us to see into our future. Einstein said, "The imagination is the preview of what is to come.