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Quote List for Creative Thinking

QuoteAuthor
I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
The important thing is not to stop questioning.Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
The only thing that interferes with my learning, is my education. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
One cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that gave rise to it.Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan but also believe. Anatole France (1844-1924)
We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over. Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960)
First, you have to have fun. Second, you have to put love where your labour is. Third, you have to go in the opposite direction to everyone else.Anita Roddick (1942-2007)
All truth passes through three stages. First; it is ridiculed. Second; it is violently opposed. Third; it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke, or worried to death by a frown on the wrong person’s brow. Charles Browder
Everything that can be invented has been invented. Charles H Duell,Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
If you’ve always done it that way, it is probably wrong.Charles Kettering
Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. Douglas Macarthur (1880 - 1964)
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.Ed Foreman
The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Enthusiasm is the great hill-climber. Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour. Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Ellen Parr (1852-1919)
What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions; but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones? G. C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
You see things, and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palace or temple on the earth; and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. Henry Ford (1863-1947)
All things must change to something new, to something strange. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)
If a man has come to that point where he is so content that he says; I do not want to know any more; or do any more or be any more; he is in a state of which he ought to be changed into a mummy. Henry Ward Beecher (1783-1860)
The most important of my discoveries has been suggested by my failures.Humphrey Davy (1778-1829)
We are all failures - at least, all the best of us are. J. M. Barrie (1860 - 1937)
I enjoy choosing the path that others don't.James Dyson
Nothing important comes with instructions.James Richardson
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.James Thurber (1894 - 1961)
Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success.John Keats (1795-1821)
Imagination is the eye of the soul. Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.Lao Tzu
A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life; by him who interests his heart in everything. Laurence Sterne (1713--1768).
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold water becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigours of the mind. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams? Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when open.Lord Thomas R Dewar
Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.Malcolm Muggeridge
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.Martin Luther King JR.
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all.Michelangelo (1475-1564)
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. Naguib Mahfouz
Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935)
We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
All ideas pass through a stage where it is easy to rubbish them. Peter Honey
While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity. Publilius Syrus
A college is a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.Sir Francis Bacon (1561- 1626)
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Sir Francis Bacon (1561- 1626)
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator. Sir Francis Bacon (1561- 1626)
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. Sir J. Lubbock (1834–1913)
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
I failed my way to success.Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea. Thomas Fuller (1710-1790)
Some folk want their luck buttered. Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
To see things in the seed; that is genius. Unknown
Heal the past; live the present; dream the future. Unknown
Better to light a small candle than to curse in the dark.Unknown
Behold the tortoise. He only makes progress when he sticks out his neck.Unknown
My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it. Ursula K. Le Guin (born 1929 )
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour. Victor Hugo (1802-1906)
Procrastination is opportunity's assassin.Victor Kiam (1926-2001)
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney (1901-1966)
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)
Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. William Arthur Ward (1916-1977)
An idea can turn into dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. William Bernbach (1911-1982)
He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed. William James (1842-1910)
If you're not failing every now and again, it’s a sign that you’re not doing anything very innovative.Woody Allen