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You don’t have to be an artist to tap into the wellspring of creativity and draw inspiration from it.
Creative expression is not limited to visual arts, poetry, novels, or music. You can manifest creativity in the workplace or at school by discovering out-of-the-box ways to solve problems, sharing a fresh perspective, or coming up with original ideas.
In this post, we’ve collected creativity quotes intended to spark your creativity. We hope that these wise words from people who know the value of creativity will inspire you to be more creative, to be truer to yourself, and to inspire others so they, too, can unleash their own creative expressions.
We feature quotes about creativity and imagination; imagination and play; creativity and art; and creativity and innovation. Furthermore, there are quotes about being an artist, and creativity and art quotes for teachers.
First, let’s discover some quotes about creativity and imagination.
Quotes About Creativity and Imagination
- “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
- “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda
- “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” – Pablo Picasso
- “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” – Brené Brown
Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” – Brené Brown
- “How to unlock creativity: slow down, study another field, get into nature, get out of office, music (lots), sketch, cardio before/after, nibble on small ideas, throw stuff away, atomize the work, look for orthogonal inspiration, breathe, learn about circadian rhythm, paint.” – Brian Norgard
- “If you’re to create something powerful and important, you must at the very least be driven by an equally powerful inner force.” – Ryan Holiday
- “The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create.” – Barack Obama
- “The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.” – Ernest Becker
- “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
- “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” – Mohammad Ali
- “Imagination creates reality.” – Richard Wagner
- “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.” – Dieter F. Uchtdorf
- “To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” – Osho
- “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” – Erich Fromm
If you have kids, one way to develop their creativity is to allow them to engage in pretend or imaginative play.
The results of research published in the American Journal of Play reveal that imaginative play gives children a certain advantage when it comes to problem solving when they become older. Furthermore, children who engage in imaginative play tend to do better in creative expression.
Provide plenty of opportunity for your children to play. But also be aware that play isn’t just for children. Adults can also benefit from it.
Play lowers stress by releasing endorphins, or the “happy hormones.” This then stimulates creativity and helps your brain grow.
So make play a part of your daily routine or consider taking up a new hobby.
Meanwhile, this collection of quotes about imagination and play encourages you to embrace this beneficial and enjoyable activity, no matter what your age is.
Quotes About Imagination and Play
- “When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” – Linda Naiman
- “One of my early mentors, poet David Wagoner, who divides the creative process into three phases – madman, poet and critic – once told me that you need to find your own magic to stay in the world of creative play.” – Sonia Gernes
One of my early mentors, poet David Wagoner, who divides the creative process into three phases – madman, poet and critic – once told me that you need to find your own magic to stay in the world of creative play.” – Sonia Gernes
- “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung
- “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
- “You were wild once. Don’t let them tame you.” – Isadora Duncan
- “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – William Butler Yeats
- “Some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way.” – Douglas Pagels
- “I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.” – Stephen Hawking
- “The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” – Erik Erikson
- “The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch
The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch
- “Play is serious business. At stake for us are the ways we socialize and teach future generations of scientists, inventors, artists, explorers, and other individuals who will shape the work in which we live. It is safe to say that humans, as a species, have always had a concept of play. But only recently has play begun getting the serious attention it deserves as a source of discovery.” – Arthur Molella
Creativity and art go hand in hand.
Art encourages people to harness their creativity to make something tangible. But the final result does not necessarily have to be something that will be hung in galleries or displayed in museums. It can also be something useful that benefits society.
If your work is closely related to the arts, let the following quotes about creativity and art inspire you to be more passionate about what you do.
Quotes About Creativity and Art
- “Art helps us see connections & brings a more coherent meaning to our world.” – Earnest Boyer
- “The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.” – Joan Miró
- “Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.” – Leo Tolstoy
- “You become more divine as you become more creative. All the religions of the world have said God is the creator. I don’t know whether he is the creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So he must be the creator because people who have been creative have been closest to him. Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it – whatsoever it is!” – Osho
- “For anyone to grow up complete, art is imperative.” – Paul Harvey
- “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol
- “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” – Pablo Picasso
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” – Pablo Picasso
- “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams
- “For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.” – Roman Payne
- “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.” – Tony Robbins
- “That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.” – Ray Bradbury
Companies and organizations are now beginning to realize the true value of creativity in the workplace.
Without creativity, innovations cannot flourish. And in this age, when there is fierce competition among businesses, innovation is essential for survival.
The following creativity and innovation quotes were collected to serve as a reminder of how crucial this process is to success.
Creativity and Innovation Quotes
- “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” – Theodore Levitt
- “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” – Roger Von Oech
- “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns” – Edward de Bono
- “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” – Brené Brown
- “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” – Kurt Vonnegut
- “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo
- “Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” – Edward de Bono
- “We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan
- “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.” – Twyla Tharp
- “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” – Albert Camus
- “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford
How in touch are you with your creativity?
We’ve mentioned earlier that creativity is not the exclusive domain of artists. That being said, we have included quotes about being an artist here to give you an idea of what it’s like to be in touch with your creativity, as most artists are.
Quotes About Being an Artist
- “There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” – Martha Graham
- “What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one…. It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.” – Federico Fellini
- “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pierce
To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pierce
- “You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” – Lewis Carroll
- “An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” – Charles Cooley
- “Truly creative people care a little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. Their driving focus is the life force that surges in them now.” – Alan Cohen
- “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The most talented, thought-provoking, game-changing people are never normal.” – Richard Branson
- “Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.” – Criss Jami
- “Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal.” – Henry Miller
- “The great artist is the simplifier.” – Vincent van Gogh
- “The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” – Neil Gaiman
- “To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes.” – Akira Kurosawa
Now, more than ever, teachers have an important role to play in equipping students for their future.
Teachers are in a strategic position to help students develop the skills they need to flourish and succeed.
And what are these important skills? They include problem solving, critical thinking, innovation, and creativity.
If you’re a teacher, may the following creativity and art quotes inspire you to make a positive impact in the lives of the future generation.
Creativity and Art Quotes for Teachers
- “Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.” –Nmandi Azikiwe
- “Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” – Ken Robinson
- “Replace fear with curiosity.” – Steven Spielberg
- “He who opens a school door closes a prison.” – Victor Hugo
- “An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.” – William Bennett
- “Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” – Arthur Koestler
- “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” – Mary Lou Cook
Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” – Mary Lou Cook
- “The invention of IQ did a great disservice to creativity in education. … Individuality, personality, originality are too precious to be meddled with by amateur psychiatrists whose pattern for ‘wholesome personality’ are inevitably their own.” – Joel Henry Hildebrand
- “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
- “Create with the heart; build with the mind.” – Criss Jami
Final Thoughts on Creativity Quotes
Creativity is a characteristic we can nurture within ourselves. The more developed our creativity is, the more we can produce original thoughts and ideas that have the potential to change the world.
Today, we’ve presented a collection of quotes on creativity in relation to life, work, and play. Have you found a favorite from among them?
As an adult, it can be difficult to tap into that freewheeling feeling we get when creativity seizes us. Fortunately, there are some activities that can help unlock this within you. One way to do so is by getting some crayons and coloring some pages. Check out this post for further info about adult coloring.
Another way to reclaim your creativity is by developing a hobby. Visit this post to check out our suggestions for new hobbies, skills, and activities to try.
And for more tips, check out our post on how to improve your visualization skills and mental imagery.
We appreciate you spending your time with this article. If you loved any of the art featured here today, we thank you in advance for sharing it through your favorite social media platform.
And if you want more eye-opening quotes, be sure to check out these blog posts:
- 35 Work Smarter, Not Harder Quotes for 2023
- 25 Ambition Quotes to Keep You Focused on Important Goals
- 83 Walt Disney Quotes About Dreams, Imagination, and Living a Magical Life
Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then watch this free video that details the 7-minute habit for planning your day to focus on what's truly important to you..
Here’s to a more creative and inspired you this year!
