Everyone Is Creative Quotes

“The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions ... [W]hen the composition of the group is right-enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways-the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant-not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism-that doesn't mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.”

— Jonah Lehrer

“My own view is that everyone works too hard and too long and they ought to get out more. There isn't time in their improverished lives to do anything creative, or even to just sit and stare, one of my favourite occupations. And how the wired-in young-never without their music, never out of touch because of mobile phones, constantly sharing everything, even pictures-are going to cope if they ever encounter solitude and silence is another thing.”

— Kerry Greenwood

“I also know that not everyone will like what I do, and that there are many people who do love my work, and so I write for them, and for my own pleasure, and try not to brood too much over those who have different tastes. And I have written enough books now that I know the self-doubt and the anxiety are part of the creative process, and drive me to keep trying to do better, and keep me from becoming too cocksure about my writing, which is a form of creative death.”

— Kate Forsyth

“Freedom is only to be found where there is burden to be shouldered. In creative achievements this burden always represents an imperative and a need that weighs heavily upon man's mood, so that he comes to be in a mood of melancholy. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly aware of the fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, but this is not to say that everyone in a melancholy mood is creative.”

— Martin Heidegger

“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.”

— Hugh MacLeod

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it's to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they're valued.”

— Ken Robinson

“Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth' ... Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.”

— Bertrand Russell

“(Ah, lovely adolescence-when the "talented" are officially shunted off from the herd, thus putting the total burden of society's creative dreams on the thin shoulders of a few select souls, while condemning everyone else to live a more commonplace, inspiration-free existence! What a system . . . )”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

“Appriciating that this oneness is the divine creative power and life of the universe, moving and breathing in the people we meet and the objects we encounter, we will spontaneouly treat everyone and everything with respect, and what Buddhists call "loving kindness." based on the acceptance and acknowledgement of this ultimate commonality, compassion will arise naturally.”

— Ilchi Lee

“I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes!”

— Leila Aboulela

“Having only learned to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies
my only talent
smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle ...”

— Walker Percy

“Everyone wants a definition of creativity that makes what they do into something special and what everyone else does into nothing special. But the fact is, we're all creative. We come up with weird and interesting ideas all the time. The biggest difference between 'creators' isn't their imagination - it's how hard they work. Ideas are easy. Doing stuff is hard.”

— Cory Doctorow

“Since becoming a pop star, I've experimented a lot more. I've gotten more creative with what I wear. My stylist is a bit more adventurous than I would normally be, but it's really worked, and the colours really work together. I think everyone should be a bit more confident: if it's a summer's day, wear some bright colours.”

— Olly Murs

“Consensus isn't just about agreement. It's about changing things around: You get a proposal, you work something out, people foresee problems, you do creative synthesis. At the end of it, you come up with something that everyone thinks is okay. Most people like it, and nobody hates it.”

— David Graeber

“I don't want to get too philosophical, but in a sense, you're given this gift, this sort of creative force in you, and I think everyone has it, and it's completely unique to you. And you as a person have a little bit of a responsibility as its shepherd if you choose to incorporate that into your life.”

— Ze Frank

“I think it is the weak and the young and the minorities that you need to look after to get a healthy creative environment - to get a lot of choices, a lot of different styles of music, a lot experimental stuff that everyone else feeds off.”

— Peter Gabriel

“Everyone has been in a social situation where you say something and it goes unnoticed, then someone else says the same thing and everyone laughs a lot. You learn how to be more creative and whacky and amusing.”

— Sloane Crosley

“Everyone is an artist. Everyone is creative in their own way and that that creativity is a great thing. It's a human thing and it needs to be nurtured and it can help us go down life's path and help us to become deeper, richer, more satisfied human beings.”

— Rainn Wilson

“I think doing something creative is the most important thing to me, and I think it's probably just good for the soul for anyone, whatever it is. You don't have to be a film director - you can do gardening or something - but I think everyone needs to create something.”

— Ricky Gervais

“Everyone has the ability to be creative. Everyone has the ability to connect one idea with another, to find an idea in another department, organization, or industry, and connect it with another to solve the challenge at hand.”

— Elaine Dundon

“You grow most in your areas of greatest strength. You will improve the most, be the
most creative, be the most inquisitive, and bounce back the fastest in those areas
where you have already shown some natural advantage over everyone else your strengths. This doesn't mean you should ignore your weaknesses. It just means
you'll grow most where you're already strong.”

— Marcus Buckingham

“Steve Chandler and Duane Black present an approach to management that promises to lower your stress level, increase your happiness and allow everyone in your organization to be more creative and productive.”

— Rolf Dobelli

“Everyone is creative and everyone is a techie.”

— Ayah Bdeir

“Here's a news flash
writers are selfish people. Truth is, creative types like me are driven by one impulse
to make up a world in which we get to control everything and everyone. We decide who enters and who exits, what the weather will be, who will hook up with whom, who will win and who will lose. It makes us feel powerful and, in all honesty, has relatively little to do with thinking about what will make anyone else happy.”

— Victoria Laurie

“Being creative isn't confined to a specific set of professions
everyone can and should be innovative.”

— Paul McDonald

“A strategist is one who helps people relax into their creative skills. People won't rally unless an idea is beautiful ... Everyone is hanging on every word ... Amazing.”

— Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

“Everyone has a story, the air is full of stories. The creative process is mysterious, I don't know why it is that suddenly a theme will take hold of me and refuse to leave me in peace until I investigate it and write it.”

— Isabel Allende

“We are all creative, but by the time we are three of four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else.”

— Maya Angelou

“I wasn't taking so many drugs that it was messing up my creative processes. It was a very good period, 1968 - there was a good feeling in the air. It was a very creative period for everyone.”

— Mick Jagger

“Do you mind even a little that you are still addicted to people-pleasing, and are still putting everyone else's needs and laundry and career ahead of your creative, spiritual life? Giving all your life force away, to "help" and impress. Well, your help is not helpful, and falls short.”

— Anne Lamott

“I'd say we [Apple Inc.] are the most creative of the technology companies and definitely the most artist-friendly. Almost everyone in the music business uses a Mac and everyone has an iPod.”

— Steve Jobs

“I think people are at their most creative when they're relaxed. I don't believe that tension is good for creativity. Everyone is relaxed and therefore can feel able to express their own individual creativity and lots of ideas come in. It's a joy like that.”

— Joe Wright

“Any Church community, if it thinks it can comfortably go its own way without creative concern and effective cooperation in helping the poor to live with dignity and reaching out to everyone, will also risk breaking down,”

— Pope Francis

“We like to say that India has the advantage of being a large market. We have provinces, we have the rule of law, we have a system of justice. But those are also weaknesses when compared with China. On the other hand, one of our strengths is that we are very individualistic, and as individuals we are very creative. But that, too, is a weakness, because it keeps us from working well together. Everyone thinks only about his own profit.”

— Ratan Tata