1. Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
William Adams (b.1934) U.S. financial consultant. The Dilbert Principle (1996)
2. Many people are inventive, sometimes cleverly so. But real creativity begins with the drive to work on and on and on.
Margueritte Bro (1894-1977) U.S. writer. Sarah (1949)
3. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
Albert Camus (1913-60) French novelist and essayist. Notebooks (1963)
4. The decisive moment.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (b.1908) French photographer. Essay (1952)
5. But my art, I thought, is perhaps a wild art, a blazing quicksilver, a blue soul flashing on my canvas.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) French painter. My life (1931)
6. If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
John Cleese (b.1939) British comedian, actor, and writer. East Valley Tribune (1999)
7. Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.
James Dewar (1842-1923) British physicist. Attrib.
8. Inventors and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the ends) of their careers.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-81) Russian novelist. The idiot (1868)
9. As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) U.S. physicist. Letter (September 1932)
10. For people who live in the imagination, there is no lack of subjects. To seek for the exact moment at which inspiration comes is false. Imagination floods us with suggestions all the time, from all directions.
Federico Fellini (1920-93) Italian director. Autobiography (1974)
11. Puzzle drive.
Richard Feynman (1920-93) U.S. physicist. Address (1957)
12. Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little over a century ago?
Bernice Fitz-Gibbon (1895?-1982) U.S. advertising executive. Quoted in her obituary. New York Times (1982)
13. Curious people have an appetite for learning new things and they realize the necessity for change.
Brad Fregger, U.S. C.E.O. of 1st World Library. “On Achieving Excellence” (July 1991)
14. In the middle of a hard project, I remind people to do something else. Sometimes people need to work on something completely different to get their best ideas.
Brad Fregger, U.S. C.E.O. of 1st World Library. “On Achieving Excellence” (July 1991)
15. One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide (1869-1951) French novelist and essayist. The Counterfeiters (1926)
16. All the great work comes from people’s obsession and imagination, not from focus groups.
Michael Grade (b.1943) British television executive. Marketing (June 2000)
17. I don’t think I am creative. I think I recognize creativity.
Michael Grade (b.1943) British television executive. Marketing (June 2000)
18. Shakespeare didn’t walk up and down at the Globe and ask “What do you fancy”…he just wrote what he felt like.
Michael Grade (b.1943) British television executive. Marketing (June 2000)
19. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer (1902-83) U.S. philosopher. The Passionate State of Mind (1955)
20. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something…That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.
Steve Jobs (b.1955) U.S. entrepreneur, cofounder and C.E.O. of Apple Computers Company, and C.E.O. of Pixar. Interview, “The Next Insanely Great Thing,” Wired Magazine (February 1996)
21. Firms that take a creative approach to looking for a process edge may discover or invent processes that open new avenues of opportunity without massive capital investment or abondoning currently successful ways of doing business.
Peter G. W. Keen (b.1930) U.S. information technology consultant. “Basic Change,” The Process Edge (1999)
22. True creativity often starts where language ends.
Arthur Koestler (1905-83) British writer and journalist. The Act of Creation (1964)
23. Every creative act is a sudden cessation of stupidity.
Edwin Land (1909-91) U.S. inventor and founder of Polaroid Corporation. Forbes (June 1975)
24. Intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out resources in people that they didn’t know they had.
Edwin Land (1909-91) U.S. inventor and founder of Polaroid Corporation. Forbes (June 1975)
25. I think human beings in the mass are fun at square dances, exciting to be with in a theater audience…At the same time, I think, whether outside science or within science, there is no such thing as group originality or group creativity.
Edwin Land (1909-91) U.S. inventor and founder of Polaroid Corporation. “Thinking Ahead,” Harvard Business Review (September-October 1959)
26. We as technologists in industry do not use these minds at all. Instead of regarding them as minds, we substitute other criteria for usefulness.
Edwin Land (1909-91) U.S. inventor and founder of Polaroid Corporation. Selected Papers in industry (Polaroid Corporation; 1983)
27. We created an environment in which a man was expected to sit and think for two years.
Edwin Land (1909-91) U.S. inventor and founder of Polaroid Corporation. Selected Papers in industry (Polaroid Corporation; 1983)
28. Creativity is never enough.
Adrienne Landau (b.1950) U.S. fashion designer. “An Artisan Discovers Cash Flow,” Forbes Global (Richard C. Morais; October 1999)
29. All too often, people believe that creativity automatically leads to innovation. It doesn’t.
Theodore Levitt (b1925) U.S. management theorist, writer, and editor. “Ideas are Useless Unless Used,” Inc. (February 1981)
30. Creativity people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others.
Theodore Levitt (b1925) U.S. management theorist, writer, and editor. “Ideas are Useless Unless Used,” Inc. (February 1981)
31. Creativity is thinking new things, Innovation is doing new things.
Theodore Levitt (b1925) U.S. management theorist, writer, and editor. “Ideas are Useless Unless Used,” Inc. (February 1981)
32. Since business is a “get things done” institution, creativity without action-oriented follow-trough is a barren form of behavior.
Theodore Levitt (b1925) U.S. management theorist, writer, and editor. “Ideas are Useless Unless Used,” Inc. (February 1981)
33. If you possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer. Death in Venice (1913)
34. I have no children but I have the heart of a child.
Mari Matsunaga (b.1954) Japanese IT designer. Fortune (October 2000)
35. Less is more.
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969) German architect. Quoted in Mies van der Rohe (p. Johnson; 1947)
36. Planning, by its very nature, defines and preserves categories. Creativity, by its very nature, creates categories or re-arranges established ones.
Henry Mintzberg (b.1939) Canadian academic and management theorist. The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994)
37. Strategic planning can neither provide creativity nor deal with it when it emerges by other means.
Henry Mintzberg (b.1939) Canadian academic and management theorist. The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994)
38. Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris (1834-96) British craftsman, artist, and writer. Hopes and Fears for Art (1882)
39. Organisations with decision-making speed and imagination will thrive as nobody can claim to have a monopoly over creativity.
Narayana Murthy (b.1946) Indian founder and C.E.O. of Infosys. “The Future Is Inorganic,” www.rediff.com (1998)
40. Could Henry Ford produce the Book of Kells? Certainly not. He would quarrel initially with the advisability of such a project and then prove it was impossible.
Flann O’Brien (1911-66) Irish writer. Myles Away from Dublin (1990)
41. The majority of businessmen are incapable of original thought because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason.
David Ogilvy (1911-99) British advertising executive, founder and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather. Quoted in The Creative Organisation (Gary A. Steiner, ed.; 1965)
42. That’s an actor’s life. Complete freedom and versatility.
Laurence Olivier (1907-89) British actor and director. Interview (1986)
43. Controlled accident.
Jackson Pollock (1912-56) U.S. painter. Referring to his painting technique. Interview (1946)
44. The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.
Ayn Rand (1905-82) U.S. writer. The Fountainhead (1943)
45. As far as creativity is concerned, the power is in the unexpected.
Alan G. Robinson (b.1958) U.S. author. Corporate Creativity (co-written with Sam Stern; 1997)
46. The majority of creative acts are unplanned, and each begins with awareness of an unexpected opportunity.
Alan G. Robinson (b.1958) U.S. author. Corporate Creativity (co-written with Sam Stern; 1997)
47. The mind thinks, not with data, but with ideas whose creation and elaboration cannot be reduced to a set of predictable values.
Theodore Roszak (1933-81) U.S. historian, writer, and editor. The Cult of Information (1994)
48. Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
Gail Sheehy (b.1937) U.S. journalist and author. Speed Is of the Essence (1971)
49. Less is a bore.
Robert Venturi (b.1925) U.S. architect. Alluding to Mies van der Rohe’s maxim “Less is more.” Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966)
50. Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) British philosopher and mathematician. Dialogues (1954)
51. Every human brain is born, not as a blank tablet waiting to be filled in by experience, but as an exposed negative waiting to be slipped into developer fluid.
Edward O. Wilson (b.1929) U.S. biologist. Independent on Sunday (London) (February 1997)
