Creativity

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The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

Socrates

Quoted in Republic, by Plato

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Socrates. Quoted in Πολιτεία [Republic], written by Plato. c. 375 BCE.

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Socrates. Quoted in Republic, written by Plato, translated by Desmond Lee. Penguin Classics, 2007.

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Imagination labors best in distant fields.

Mark Twain

The Innocents Abroad

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Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1869.

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Twain, Mark. The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress. Random House Publishing Group, 2003.

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You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"

George Bernard Shaw

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Shaw, George Bernard. "In the Beginning: B.C. 4004." Back to Methuselah. Penguin, 1988, pt. 1, act 1. Originally published by Constable/Brentano's, 1921.

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One must have chaos inside oneself to give birth to a dancing star.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

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Original Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen [Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None]. Chemnitz: Ernst Schmeitzner, 1883, pt. 1.

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Current Citation

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, edited by Robert Pippin, translated by Adrian Del Caro. Cambridge University Press, 2006, pt. 1.

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Some people are far more sensitive to resemblances, and far more ready to point out wherein they consist, than others are. They are the wits, the poets, the inventors, the scientific men, the practical geniuses.

William James

The Principles of Psychology

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James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890, ch. 13.

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The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Albert Einstein

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Einstein, Albert. "What I Believe. Living Philosophies 13." Forum and Century, Oct. 1930, vol. 84, issue 4, pp. 193-194.

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

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Szent-Gyorgyi, Albert. Quoted in The Scientist Speculates: An Anthology of Partly-Baked Ideas, written by Irving John Good. Heinemann, 1962, ch. 1, sect. 6.

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A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.

Albert Einstein

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Einstein, Albert. "Letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon." Quoted in Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, 2007. Originally from Letter to Dr. H. L. Gordon, 3 May 1949.

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We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Henry James

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Original Citation

James, Henry. "The Middle Years." Scribner's Magazine. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893.

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James, Henry. "The Middle Years." Henry James: Complete Stories 1892-1898. Vol. 4. Library of America, 1996.

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Bees ransack flowers here and there, but then they make honey, which is entirely theirs: it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Similarly a boy will transform and mix his borrowings.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

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Original Citation

De Montaigne, Michel. "De l'Institution des Enfants [Of the Education of Children]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

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De Montaigne, Michel. "On Educating Children." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

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The desire to create is one of the strongest urges a human spirit can contain. It will always break through.

Tennessee Williams

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Williams, Tennessee. "Tennessee Williams: Past and Present." Interviewed by Charles Ruas and Bill Lentch, WBAI-FM New York, 12 Dec. 1975.

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Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way - towards a busy street or terminal - before they run out of their burrows.

Alain de Botton

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De Botton, Alain. A Week at the Airport. Profile Books, 2009.

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But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, understand and love one another, and live to comfort each other. And sometimes, when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us.

Hermann Hesse

Gertrude

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Original Citation

Hesse, Herman. Getrud [Gertrude]. Albert Langen, 1910.

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Hesse, Herman. Gertrude, translated by Hilda Rosner. Picador, 2005.

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Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

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Original Citation

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831, introduction.

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Shelley, Mary. "Introduction to Frankenstein, Third Edition (1831)." Frankenstein: The 1818 Text. Penguin Classics, 2018.

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I am happier when I have something to compose, for that, after all, is my sole delight and passion.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Letter to his father. 11 Oct. 1777.

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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. "Letter to his father in Salzburg. Munich, October 11, 1777." Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life, translated and edited by Robert Spaethling. W. W. Norton & Company, 2005.

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

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Einstein, Albert. "What Life Means to Einstein." Interviewed by George Sylvester Viereck. The Saturday Evening Post, 26 Oct. 1929.

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The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.

Jackson Pollock

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Pollock, Jackson. "My Painting." Possibilities, no. 1, Winter 1947-1948, p. 79.

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Creativity takes courage.

Henri Matisse

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Matisse, Henri. Quoted in Artist to Artist: Inspiration & Advice from Artists Past & Present, written by Clint Brown. Jackson Creek Press, 1998.

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The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Sylvia Plath

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Plath, Sylvia. Letter to unknown recipient. June or July 1953.

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The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!

Mikhail Bakunin

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Bakunin, Michael (published as Jules Elysard). "Die Reaktion in Deutschland." Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Kunst. c. 1842.

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