Quotes & Sayings About Creative Inspiration

An idea is like a spark to creativity, which turns to a wild conflagration of thoughts, burning every ignorance. When the fire burns, the creative power is awake, and comes out to join the ideas in your head to bring out the hidden valuables the world never knew — Michael Bassey Johnson

It is the daily task of the creative to be curious and collect dots. The most creative people I know fill their brains, their idea factories, with as much raw material as they can. They have voracious appetites. — David DuChemin

Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike
breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? ... Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you'll wait for ever. — Ngaio Marsh

Silence is the great teacher and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. — Deepak Chopra

Surrounding yourself with creative, imaginative people is a good strategy for success whether you're an entrepreneur seeking innovation or an artist looking for inspiration. — Harvey MacKay

The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.' — Leon Trotsky

I don't believe in the model of pure inspiration. All of my creative work stems from a dialogue with others. — Rachel Kushner

Stop waiting for creative inspiration. Start creating and inspire yourself along the way. — Ryan Lilly

Violence sometimes may have cleared away obstructions quickly, but it never has proved itself creative. — Albert Einstein

Our Nation has a diverse and extremely rich cultural heritage. It is a source of pride and strength to millions of Americans who look to the arts for inspiration, communication and the opportunity for creative self-expression. — Gerald R. Ford

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution. — Steven Pressfield

Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn't draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn't do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system - learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention - may radically transform one's life. — Sam Harris

That's always the most productive research - research into tone, into voice. Facts are nice, too, but facts are more raw material than creative inspiration. — Jonathan Dee

File under "Hard Truths": the creative muse is fiction. If you sit around waiting for the right moment to create, you will die waiting. — Antony Johnston

Depression is the flip side of creative inspiration but it can be useful. It's telling you to stop for a little bit. You can become so fully absorbed in the world of creative work that it can lead to some imbalance in your life. — Shaun Tan

The difference between a fairly interesting writer and a fascinating writer is that the fascinating writer has a better nose for what genuinely excites him, he is hotter on the trail, he has a better instinct for what is truly alive in him. The worse writer may seem to be more sensible in many ways, but he is less sensible in this vital matter: he cannot distinguish what is full of life from what is only half full or empty of it. And so his writing is less alive, and as a writer he is less alive, and in writing, as in everything else, nothing matters but life. — Ted Hughes

Two factors thus emerge as requisites of success in the field of creative photography. First, the subject must be photogenic. Second, its re-creation in a photograph must be based upon technical knowledge, guided and supported by artsitic inspiration. — Andreas Feininger

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release. — Eddie Van Halen

If you just had an inspiration at night or with a girl or whatever and you want to talk about it, you don't necessarily want to share it with everybody ... That's the first thing that made me want to go solo; I wanted to talk about my own things, I wanted to try to be creative [in] my own way. — K-Maro

Every creative genius has been a channel. Every masterwork has been created through the channeling process. Great works are not created by the personality alone. They arise from a deep inspiration on the universal level, and are then expressed and brought into form through the individual personality. — Shakti Gawain

It is beyond logic that we see the light. — Julieanne O'Connor

We like to think of creativity as a space for untrammelled imagination, free from all constraints. Yet
while freedom, rule-breaking and inspiration are undoubtedly essential to the creative process, the
popular image of creativity overlooks another aspect: examine the life of any great artist and you
will find evidence of hard work, discipline and a hard-won knowledge of the rules and conventions
of their medium. — Mark McGuinness

To me, music and songwriting is ... part of the intriguing thing is the creative process; you know, the creative thought process. Relying on that ... there is some sort of inspiration there and you can't always put your finger on where it comes from. So, it's always been important for me to have my own thing and, even though I'm inspired by and influenced by many different musicians and styles of music, I was very determined early on to have my own thing. So when I sit down to write I don't necessarily have a particular narrative or message in mind. I'm interested in language and in words. — Page Hamilton

Entire universes flourish in my mind. Sometimes I get lost in there. — Janey Colbourne

What is hell to a writer? Hell is being too busy to find the time to write or being unable to find the inspiration. Hell is suddenly finding the words but being away from your notebook or typewriter. Hell is when the verses slip away through your fingers and they never return again. — R.M. Engelhardt

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to."
[MovieMaker Magazine #53 - Winter, January 22, 2004 ] — Jim Jarmusch

But when I accept the call of creative passion, I am a bold stroke of vermilion, a renegade hyperbole, or the wild fury of jazz violin. The world is a canvas to explore, a blank page to fill, and an arpeggio of waiting experiences. This moving masterpiece called "life" becomes intoxicating when it's lived as if it were art. — Jill Badonsky

Every invention begins with an original thought. You are God's original thought. You are his initiative, the fruit of his creative inspiration, his intimate design and love-dream. — Francois Du Toit

Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found. — F. A. Harper

We are never more creative than when we are at odds with the world and there is nothing so artistically destructive as comfort. Princess Leia taught me that. — Simon Pegg

Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. — Steven Pressfield

Life is beautiful dream. — Lailah Gifty Akita

All inspiration comes from a higher power. The body is a shell. The creative spot is from God - You hear voices, everybody does. When you get older, you refer to it as intuition. — Eddie Murphy

And my theory about professional artists was as follows: artists are not necessarily the most creative or inspired individuals in any given community. Instead they are those individuals most willing to exploit their own creativity and inspiration, most willing to gain personal profit from their unconscious and its emanations, those with the most missionary zeal for the dissemination of their own idiosyncratic perspectives. Questions of pure creativity clearly lay elsewhere. — Jacob Wren

The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance. — Aberjhani

Perhaps creativity's greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative adventure, you have a souvenir - something that you made, something to remind you forever of your brief but transformative encounter with inspiration — Elizabeth Gilbert

Creative minds doesn't get tired. — Amit Kalantri

Love is the creative fire, the inspiration that keeps the torch of progress aflame. — Wilferd Peterson

Every time you express a complaint about how difficult and tiresome it is to be creative, inspiration takes another step away from you, — Elizabeth Gilbert

Being surrounded by artistic and musical beauty soothes the soul, bringing both quiet calm and creative inspiration ... — Wayne D. Dosick

Anything creative requires a bit of acting,and filling in blanks with imagination. — Christina Westover

The willingness to be a champion for stupid ideas is the key to greater creativity, innovation, fulfillment, inspiration, motivation and success. — Richie Norton

Creation and Free Will are constantly moving, hand in hand, like children traveling along a path full of impulses and inspirations.Through the use of the Dragonflame philosophy they become superior artistic beings able to enjoy and share the fruits of creative labor. — Lawren Leo

Your education experience, talent intelligence, and financial situations don't matter. The important thing is the direction in which you focus your unique, powerful, creative mind — Mark Allen

Sometimes, you just have to clear your head and get out to see other things. It is very important to be nourished. I love to go to museums and galleries, I like to see theatre, film, dance - anything creative. It doesn't promise you inspiration, but it nourishes your creative soul, and that's good. — Marc Jacobs

Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more. — Twyla Tharp

I don't find inspiration on Wall Street. I don't find that in Beverly Hills. I don't find that in places where opportunity resides unbridled, and I think the real creative energy and the real juice is in where people are caught, in the economic abyss. — Harry Belafonte

The Arts are not drugs. They are not guaranteed to act when taken. Something as mysterious and capricious as the creative impulse has to be released before they can act. — E. M. Forster

Our first experience of God is so important, we either experience Him as the police guard that wants to punish or as Creative Love that awaits. — Pope Benedict XVI

In the 'Life' of George Eliot, John Walter Cross gave an intriguing account of Eliot's creative method. "She told me that, in all her best writing, there was a 'not herself' which took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting," Cross wrote. — Rebecca Mead

Procrastination is a form of punishment — Jill Badonsky

In 1829 Rossini was at an age which has often proven critical in the lives of musicians, painters and writers. Lapses into silence far more complete than Rossini's, creative failures, suicides, and unanticipated deaths have been common in the middle to late 30s. As Charles Rosen has noted, 'It is the age when the most fluent composer begins to lose the ease of inspiration he once possessed, when even Mozart had to make sketches and to revise'. — Richard Osborne

For years to come the debris of a convulsed world will beset our steps. It will require a purpose stronger than any man and worthy of all men to calm and inspirit us. A sane society whose riches are happy children, men and women, beautiful with peace and creative activity, is not going to be ordained for us. We must make it ourselves. — Helen Keller

Inspiration for my 'Nerdy Nummies' videos comes from all over. Many of the ideas originate from the games, comics or movies I'm excited about. My family is really creative as well and are constantly sending me their thoughts. — Rosanna Pansino

Adidas is a very personal inspiration to me. It has enriched my creative life. It's an exchange between different cultures, different ideas, and most of all, it is teamwork. — Yohji Yamamoto

The greatest discovery is self-discovery. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I could write about how I feel when I sing, write and create something from heartbreak, sorrow, sadness or just simply nothingness. How nothingness can become the most beautiful, unexplainable feeling that makes you forget about gravity for an hour. — Charlotte Eriksson

I draw creative juices from everywhere. I'm so visually inspired. I would watch old movies a lot to get inspiration for clothes. — Cindy Meehl

You know you possess the soul of an artist when, each time you sit down to create, the whole universe lays itself at your feet. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightening bold of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone. — Twyla Tharp

I highly recommend Marci Alboher's One Person/ Multiple Careers. It includes lots of practical strategies for living the slash. Malcom Gladwell is also a constant source of inspiration for me. In his book Outliers, Gladwell proposes that there are three criteria for meaningful work - complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward - and that these can often be found in creative work.2 These criteria absolutely fit with what cultivating meaningful work means in the context of the Wholehearted journey. Last, I think everyone should read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist3 - I try to read it at least once a year. It's a powerful way of seeing the connections between our gifts, our spirituality, and our work (slashed or not) and how they come together to create meaning in our lives. — Brene Brown

Ideas doesn't make anyone rich, it is what you use it to do that makes you rich. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Do you train for passing tests or do you train for creative inquiry? — Noam Chomsky

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken. — John C. Maxwell

My inner guidance is there for me to call on anytime I need or want extra clarity, wisdom, knowledge, support, creative inspiration, love, or companionship. — Shakti Gawain

The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that at any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened The Fraud Police.

In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don't know why he carried a clipboard, in my head, but he did) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn't consist of making things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read. — Neil Gaiman

I have a binging imagination and thus a mental hoarding problem.
What I need to do is host an estate sale in my heavy head
and invite those suffering from creative block in through the porches of my ears to browse through the crowded unorganized trove of
curious coinages, precious epiphanies and junky minutiae and take away inspiration while uncluttering my poor mind. — Stephen Stokes

Creativity isn't about avoiding frustration. It's about pushing through and coming out the other side. — Michele Jennae

Magic is not just for the entertainment, but to inspire people to be creative enough with their lives. — Amit Kalantri

It was during the Renaissance that creativity was first seen, not as a matter of divine inspiration, but as a gift of a great learned man to imitate God's ability to create. As Prometheus stole the fire of the Gods and brought it to the mankind, humanity needed to steal the secret of 'creation' from Gods and understand its essence. — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

Whether we write lyrics or craft legislation, sell homes or teach classes, design spaces or open franchises, prayer is a critical part of the creative process. Don't just brainstorm; praystorm. — Mark Batterson

Take the next little step-the smaller you make it, the more likely you'll take it.. — Jill Badonsky

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. — Octavia E. Butler

Having ideas is not the same thing as being creative. Creation is execution, not inspiration. — Kevin Ashton

All you have to do is put one word after another, and remember how great it feels to be a writer. — Stephanie Lennox

When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless. — Ed Catmull

Every culture, if its natural development is not too much affected by political restrictions, experiences a perpetual renewal of the formative urge, and out of that comes an ever growing diversity of creative activity. Every successful piece of work stirs the desire for greater perfection and deeper inspiration; each new form becomes the herald of new possibilities of development. — Rudolf Rocker

(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

You made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. In this creative restlessness beats and pulsates what is most deeply human - the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience. — Pope John Paul II

Reaching a 'creative' state of mind thru positive action is considered preferable to waiting for 'inspiration'. — Minor White

Musicians have notes. Painters have paint. Writers have words. — Lisa Fantino

If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for
a walk. — Raymond I. Myers

Everyone is beautiful and talented in their own special way. Some people can sing, dance, play instruments, teach, and more. You may not be in the hall of fame, but you possess the ability to inspire others. Recognize your talents and continue to be creative. Share your beautiful gifts with the world — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me. — Chris Thomas King

I believe that Gaston Cleric narrowly missed being a great poet, and I have sometimes thought that his outbursts of imaginative talk were fatal to his poetic gift. He squandered too much in the heat of personal communication. How often have I seen him draw his dark brows together, fix his eyes upon some object on the wall or a figure in the carpet, and then flash into the lamplight the very image that was in his brain. — Willa Cather

Your best creative assets do not occur unless you do a mental shift. You have to be in a positive frame of mind because inspiration is fleeting. I walk to work for inspiration and to clear my mind. — Ron Ben-Israel

My creative process involves that old saying: It's 90% perspiration and only 10% inspiration. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

You get inspiration from craziest places. It's just about being creative. You gotta step outside that box, you know what I'm saying, to reach the people. You never know who can feel it; who it can connect to. — Nayvadius Cash

The movie Koyaanisqatsi shows non-commented time-lapse footage and focuses our attention on the very rhythm of our civilized modern life and nature. A marijuana high can do something for a user similar to what this time-lapse footage does. The enhancement of episodic memory and the acceleration of associative streams of memories can alter and enhance our recognition of patterns in our lives in various ways. If we are presented with quick associative chains of past experiences, we can see a pattern in a body of information that is usually not at once presented to our "inner eye" as such. — Sebastian Marincolo

We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better. — Walt Stanchfield

An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours. — Irving Stone

I faced people from all walks of business who fully disregarded design (though they were completely influenced by it). I also met fine artists who drowned in their own work and the dense creative universe in their minds.

Then I met designers. And instantly fell in love. Let me tell you why.

Designers are familiar with critiques. They not only tolerate them but actively look out for them. They honestly believe in iterations and learn to edit down their work. They embrace simplicity and create beauty based on requirements other than their own. Design education teaches you to run away from assumptions and to have the stomach to scrap your work often.

I'm bringing this up because it's time to bridge the gap between design and business. — Laura Busche

Those of fire move about the earth with inspiration and purpose. They are creative, and can consume and be consumed by their desires [ ... ] My father-to-be was of the water and could not find a hold in the banks of earthiness. Water people can easily get lost. — Joy Harjo

Authenticity is our natural state of being. The authentic self is a state of being where we are centered, creative, adaptive, and inspired. — Henna Inam

Whenever there is inspiration ... and enthusiasm ... there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of. — Eckhart Tolle

We like to take credit when we get a new idea, as if we originated the idea in our brain, but what we actually did was no less extraordinary: we channeled the idea. — Chris Prentiss

Seeing yourself as part of a creative lineage will help you feel less alone as you start making your own stuff. I hang pictures of my favourite artists in my studio. They're like friendly ghosts. I can almost feel them pushing me forward as I'm hunched over my desk. — Austin Kleon

I try not to be influenced when it comes to being creative, just in order to sustain my own voice and character. However, I do have many inspirations from the worlds of literature, music, comedy and film. — Doc Brown

The inspiration for my novels comes from the depths of a creative well, based on asking myself questions over and over. I try to write something different each time I sit down to write; I try to surprise the readers. — Nicholas Sparks

Your thought should be creative and not destructive; it should be full of hope and faith for a more excellent future. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu