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I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who
are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there. Even a flounder takes sides. Adventure is worthwhile in itself. He who creates most is he who lives the most abundant life. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries
to adapt the world to him--therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man. The only way of making clear pea soup is by omitting the pea. Creative individuals are more at home with complexity and apparent disorder
than other people are. . .The creative individual, in his generalized
preference for
apparent disorder, turns to the dimly realized life of the unconscious, and is likely to
have more than the usual amount of respect for the forces of the irrational in himself and
in others. If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first
examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking
questions. |
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Mud often gives the illusion of depth. Music is the art of thinking with sounds. Man's fear of ideas is probably the greatest dike
holding back human knowledge and happiness. An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is
people who have come alive. I've stolen my coaching philosophy from everybody. I think every coach in
our league steals from everybody else. We try to take a little bit from
everyone and form our own philosophy on how we want to do things. The ability of someone to choose and arrange the details of their creative field
guided by a vision is a major hallmark of a genius. Oh! how near are genius and madness!
Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them. The artist's whole business is to make
something out of nothing. |
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If your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another,
before you do anything, you should first decide
whether you have a better head or a better heart. The total disregard of humanity
is born not from blood-thirstiness,
but from cold calculation--for the vilest horrors of this age have been perpetrated
out of cold intellectual calculation and not out of bestial cruelty. I am prejudiced in favor of him who,
without impudence, can ask boldly.
He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself.
No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness. The map is not the territory. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it
enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it
is the journey that matters, in the end. All the things now enjoyed by civilization have been created by some man and
sold by another man before anybody really enjoyed the benefits of them. The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing. |
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Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of
men who try to. After prayer and fasting, the practice of literary compositions
does the most to bridle the lusts of the flesh. The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill.
He loves to do what he does well and having done it well, he loves to do it better. The individual is not the exception to a general class
but rather the harbinger of some easily neglected clue
that must be deeply respected and understood. Ideas are the factors that lift civilization. They
create revolutions.
There is more dynamite in an idea than in many bombs. Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or
nothing. The only time you don't fail is the last time you try something--and it works.
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge. |
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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind
there are few. He who laughs, lasts.
The only people who never fail are those who never try.
Creativity is not an escape from discipline. It's an escape with
discipline.
Nothing spoils a good party like a genius.
I have never been able to understand why it is that just because I am
unintelligible nobody understands me. The large brain, like large government, may not be able to do
simple things in a simple way. You've played Space Invaders, haven't you?
You need to smash up your shield before you can fire at the outside. Who knows the flower best? — the one who reads about it in a book,
or the one who finds it wild on the mountainside?
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All art comes out of a certain kind of
controlled free association.
We say daydreams, we say inspiration, but scientifically what it is, is free association. Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions;
reality can be attained only by someone who is detached. Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think
and suspicious of men who try to. Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time. ... not picked from the leaves of any author,
but bred amongst the weeds and tares of mine own brain. It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. Failures are divided into two classes--those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. Ideas are the root of creation. It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the true essence of life.
Never give a man up until he has failed at something he likes. |
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Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. A successful work of art is not one which
resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony,
but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively
by embodying the contradictions,
pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure. It is wise to learn; it is God-like to
create. A failure is a man who has blundered but is not able to cash in the experience. Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. The busiest of living agents are certain dead men's thoughts. No brain is stronger than its weakest think.
I have always believed that if you set out to be successful, then you already
were. I've known countless people who were reservoirs of learning, yet never had a
thought. |
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If Newton had been wearing his Walkman,
he probably would have overlooked the real impact of the apple's fall. Bring in ideas and entertain them royally, for one of them may be king. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Fun may be the most important
discipline of all. I can't write five words but that I change seven. We need to make the world safe for creativity and intuition,
for it's creativity and intuition that will make the world safe for us. Everything is what it is because it got that way. The teacher must have faith that the child will reveal himself through work. All you need is a pair of high heels and a dream. Man will not live without answers to his questions. Necessity is the mother of invention, it is true--but its father is creativity, and
knowledge is the midwife. |
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For five seconds you're a genius, the rest of your life a bum. Write it down.
The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it. Non-creative behavior is learned. The harder it is to write
or record your ideas, the more easily the ideas will flow. Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. How happy are the pessimists!
What joy is theirs when they have proved there is no joy. A fact in itself is nothing.
It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. The only joy in the world is to begin. It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty
cannot exist together in their highest perfection. |
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The essence of genius is taking an idea which some people think is ludicrous
and seeing the possibilities. Humanity reveals itself in all its intellectual splendor during this
tender age as the sun shows itself at dawn, and the flower in the first
unfolding of its petals; and we must respect religiously, reverently, these
first indications of individuality. Failure to use such an
abundant inherent treasure as creativity,
whether it be because of unawareness that it exists, indifference,
or deliberate stultification is more than a waste, it is self-betrayal. All business proceeds on beliefs, or
judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties. No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative,
you're keeping the man-child alive. Whenever man comes up with a better mousetrap,
nature immediately comes up with a better mouse. You can't actually predict the future at all. All you can do is invent it. It's what you learn after you know it all that counts! Money never starts an idea. It's the idea that starts the money. Science is a cemetery of dead ideas, even
though life may issue from them. The future masters of technology will have to be lighthearted and intelligent.
The machine easily masters the dumb and grim. |
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The best way to predict the future is to invent it. You can only be as good as you dare to be bad. Walking is great for writing songs, I've found. A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his
suspicions. Questions are the creative acts of
intelligence. If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence. Multiply the sensations and develop the capacity of
appreciating fine differences in stimuli, and we refine the sensibility
and multiply human pleasures. |
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Comments, corrections, and new quotations |
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