Creativity Quotes

"The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness."

- Joan Miro

"I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments."

- Jim Morrison

"Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears."

- Edgar Allan Poe

"There's nothing like music to relieve the soul and uplift it."

- Mickey Hart

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."

- Plato

"Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don't know in your own soul."

- Emily Carr

"Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail."

- Theodore Dreiser

"Listen, I think movies serve many different purposes, from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment, to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity, and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career."

- Antonio Banderas

"I think records and music are more appropriate and more respectful of the human soul than the churches are. And more respectful of the needs of humans to communicate with the aspects of themselves that are neglected by language."

- Will Oldham

"It's a fantastic mirror to us to engage with art, to engage with paintings that are about tragedy, to go see Shakespearean comedies, to read a Greek play... We have always investigated the lightness and darkness of the human soul, in all these forms. So why not do it on television?"

- Holly Hunter

"Cinema and the arts invite viewers to focus on a story and, in doing so, peel away its layers and peer into the depths of the human soul."

- Forest Whitaker

"Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods."

- Iris Murdoch

"The writer is the engineer of the human soul."

- Joseph Stalin

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people."

- Anne Lamott

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

- Groucho Marx

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

- Roald Dahl

"Books train your mind to imagination to think big."

- Taylor Swift

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

- Benjamin Franklin

"When you catch an adjective, kill it. No I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable."

- Oscar Wilde

"The first draft is a skeleton .… just bare bones. The rest of the story comes later with revising."

- Mark Twain

"If you want to write, you should pay attention to people — everybody has a story — and listen to people when they talk."

- Judy Blume

"Where there is to be creative action, it is quite beside the point to discuss what we should or should not do in order to be right or good. A mind that is single and sincere is not interested in being good, in conducting relations with other people so as to live up to a rule. Nor, on the other hand, is it interested in being free, in acting perversely just to prove its independence. Its interest is not in itself, but in the people and problems of which it is aware; these are 'itself.' It acts, not according to the rules, but according to the circumstances of the moment, and the 'well' it wishes to others is not security but liberty."

- Alan Wilson Watts

"When somebody plays music, you listen. You just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. The point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. In exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences."

- Alan Wilson Watts

"The centipede was happy, quite, Until a toad in fun Said, 'Pray, which leg goes after which?' This worked his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run."

- Alan Wilson Watts

"Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things."

- J. Cole

"I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin."

- J. Cole

"Imagination turned a Honda into Wraith."

- J. Cole

"I'm the Starbucks poster child."

- Robin Williams

"The lions taught me photography. They taught me patience and the sense of beauty, a beauty that penetrates you."