Creativity

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative (and creation). There is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Creativity can never be explained by appeal to reason alone.  Like the birth of a child, creativity compels us not to explanation but to wonder and awe.

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

With the stones we cast at them, genius build new roads for us.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.

Another word for creativity is courage.

One starts an action simply because one must do something.

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

One cannot evolve from one's robothood until one realizes how totally one has been robotized.

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

To the artist is sometimes granted a sudden, transient insight which serves in this matter for experience. A flash, and where previously the brain held a dead fact, the soul grasps a living truth! At moments we are all artists.

Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

True creativity often starts where language ends.