Quotes & Sayings About Creativity And Talent

Exceptional talent and extraordinary creativity are irrelevant! It's what you do with what little you have that counts big time in the end. — Ernie J Zelinski

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

Everything is given by God. All talent, creativity, ability, insight, and strength comes from him. In our own strength we can do nothing. — Marvin J. Ashton

It seems to be extensively believed by photographers that meanings are to be found in the world much in the way rabbits are found in downs, and all that is required is the talent to spot them and the skill to shoot them ... But those moments of truth for which the photographic opportunist waits, finger on the button, are as great a mystification as the notion of autonomous creativity. — Victor Burgin

It's hard to pin down what makes Weiss' music so distinctive. Perhaps it's that even in the ballads, the tone is upbeat, the outlook positive. The way Weiss writes - passionately, wittily and with respect for his fellow musicians - attests to his talent and appetite for creativity, and suggests a long, enjoyable career. — Carlo Wolff

The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as "given" to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a "creative person," but only of a creative act. — Rollo May

China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States can draw on a talent pool of 7 billion and recombine them in a diverse culture that enhances creativity in a way that ethnic Han nationalism cannot. — Lee Kuan Yew

Any person whom seeks to live a historical existence must devote their efforts to learning about the world, care about people and nature, and seek to express their thoughts in the artistic methodology most appropriate to their particular talent. A person cannot fake self-awareness or imitate an artistic nature. A person must honestly earn a heightened level of conscious awareness. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Write. Don't talk about writing. Don't tell me about your wonderful story ideas. Don't give me a bunch of 'somedays'. Plant your ass and scribble, type, keyboard. If you have any talent at all it will leak out despite your failure to pay attention in English.
[The Instrumentalities of the Night: An Interview with Glen Cook, The SF Site, September 2005] — Glen Cook

There's a wealth of talent that lies in all of us. All of us, including those who work in schools, must nurture creativity systematically and not kill it unwittingly. — Ken Robinson

The trick to creativity, if there is a single useful thing to say about it, is to identify your own peculiar talent and then to settle down to work with it for a good long time. Everyone has an aptitude for something. The trick is to recognize it, to honor it, to work with it. This is where creativity starts." - Denise Shekerjian — Thaddeus Cooper

People who follow their joy discover a depth of creativity and talent that inspires the world. — Robert Holden

We lived on 82nd Street and the Metropolitan Museum was my short cut to Central Park. I wrote:
"I go into the museum
and look at all the pictures on the walls.
Instead of feeling my own insignificance
I want to go straight home and paint."
A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn't diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can't wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else. — Madeleine L'Engle

Cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music. And cooking draws upon your every talent
science, mathematics, energy, history, experience
and the more experience you have, the less likely are your experiments to end in drivel and disaster. The more you know, the more you can create. — Julia Child

Alexander McQueen's heartbreakingly premature death, at the height of his creativity and influence, has robbed the fashion world of a soaring and unique talent. — Hamish Bowles

People think that creativity is largely a matter of talent, experience, or luck. They are wrong. Talent, experience, and luck are all key elements, but there is something more fundamental, accessible, and powerful that you can use to multiply your creative effect. — Richard Koch

Don't assume you are more creative or better than anyone, because some people with better stuffs are just pretending to be dumb for a while. — Michael Bassey Johnson

God plants the talent and it grows, sustained by a spirit-given strength to endure, even in the midst of darkness. It thrives in the valleys of life and ignores the peaks. It blooms like a flower when cradled by the warmth of the sun. It remains in a hidden stairwell in a concentration camp. It grows, fed in secret, in the heart of every artist. — Kristy Cambron

On the great canvas of time
We all create our own masterpiece.
Choreographing our steps across minutes and hours
Dancing over the days
Painting pictures over months and
Writing our stories on the years.
Singing our songs that echo across eons.
We are all a thread in the talent tapestry.
A snapshot in the cosmic, collective collage. — Michele Jennae

Many people do not develop their creativity or lose their creative confidence because they dare not produce anything for fear of rejection. Truly creative people break past that restraint and share their talent to others. They redefine rules because they know that creativity gives a feeling of fulfillment. — Christopher Michaels

It takes a number of critical factors to win an NBA championship, including the right mix of talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and of course, luck. But if a team doesn't have the most essential ingredient - love - none of those other factors matter. — Phil Jackson

Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. — Stephen King

I'm fascinated with design. I realized early that I had no talent in that direction, but I love talking with architects and designers about what they do. I appreciate applied creativity as a source of pleasure and meaning. — Alex Steffen

The highest kind of writing - which must not be confused with
the most ambitious kind ... belongs to the realm of grace. Talent is
part of it, certainly; a thorough understanding of the secret laws,
absolutely. But finding the subject and theme which is in perfect
harmony with your deepest nature, your forgotten selves, your hidden
dreams, and the full unresonated essence of your life - now that
cannot be reached through searching, nor can it be stumbled upon
through ambition. That sort of serendipity comes upon you on a
lucky day. It may emerge even out of misfortune or defeat. You may
happen upon it without realising that this is the work through
which your whole life will sing. We should always be ready. We
should always be humble. Creativity should always be a form of
prayer. — Ben Okri

How absurd human beings are and how magnificent. — Benjamin Zander

TV by and large has become a dime-store business so far as creativity and talent are concerned. The half-hour and sixty-minute series rattle off the production lines like cans of beans, with an occasional dab of ham inside. — Hedda Hopper

The principle of Creative Limitations calls for freedom within a circle of obstacles and restricted boundaries. Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies. So we deliberately put obstacles in our path - barriers that will inspire us. We disciple ourselves as to what to do, while we're boundless as to how to do it. — Robert McKee

Any man who bears the ability of a polymath shall not be interfered by specialty, he needs discipline to manage his behaviors and nurture his creativity. — Shawn Lukas

A dancer must have tremendous personality. A God like Christ and even a godman like Rajneesh had some personality. Combination of talent, dedication, creativity and being emotive is imperative. A coupling of these four qualities with technique is essential. Monotony is deterrent as it regards your style and I notice today, that new dancers perform in a startlingly similar fashion. — Yamini Krishnamurthy

Creativity or talent, like electricity, is something I don't understand but something I'm able to harness and use. While electricity remains a mystery, I know I can plug into it and light up a cathedral or a synagogue or an operating room and use it to help save a life. Or I can use it to electrocute someone. Like electricity, creativity makes no judgment. I can use it productively or destructively. The important thing is to use it. You can't use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have. — Maya Angelou

Being single is like being an artist, not because creating a functional single life is an art form, but because it requires the same close attention to one's singular needs, as well as the will and focus to fulfill them. Just as the artist arranges her life around her creativity, sacrificing conventional comforts and even social acceptance, sleeping and eating according to her own rhythms, so that her talent thrives above all else, nurtured the way a child might be, so a single person has to think hard to decipher what makes her happiest and most fulfilled. — Kate Bolick

Every creative act, however small, enriches our species and the world around us. To find and nurture talent, is to be truly wealthy. — Stewart Stafford

At the core, there is one simple, overarching reason why so many people remain unsatisfied in their work and why most organisations fail to draw out the greatest talent, ingenuity, and creativity of their people and never become truly great, enduring organisations. It stems from an incomplete paradigm of who we are - our fundamental view of human nature. The fundamental reality is, human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four-dimensional - body, mind, heart, and spirit. — Stephen Covey

But more important than all these lovely features of gracious living was the camaraderie of the young residents, who aspired to better lives on the wings of their talent and creativity. — Adriana Trigiani

Creativity and passion dwindle when hungry. Premiums for talent are easier to demand when desperation isn't part of the equation. If I'm established, I can demand $350 an hour. If I'm desperate, I may accept $5. — John-Talmage Mathis

Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed. — Jon M. Huntsman Sr.

Creativity is when a stupid clever soul gets up from bed and does amazing things that makes the world think he is wise. — Michael Bassey Johnson

It is a burden ... (M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."
- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising) — Susan Cooper

Working for incredible talents like Balenciaga and Antonio Castillo, I learned about the immense skill and creativity involved in couture work. — Oscar De La Renta

Jett's artistic talent was as weighty and emphatic as the heavy black makeup she applied to her lips and eyelids. — Judith Fertig

The '60s was a magical time in the music business. So much creativity and talent. I think a lot of it came from the fact that we had grown up before rock n' roll. We listened to all the great songwriters and big bands, songs with great lyrics and melodies. I think that really influenced everybody. — Frankie Valli

I've been collecting since college, .. When we're children, we're taught to draw in the lines, use certain colors. In this art, the talent and the creativity we had as children hasn't been squashed. The early stuff is still there. — Beverly L. Kaye

...talent is evenly distributed. You never know how many talented people are out there until you invite and inspire them to be creative. — John Wood

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs. — Joe Biden

I heard from a swimming coach that how soon children learn to swim depends on how much they trust themselves and the surrounding world. I am convinced that this (self) confidence is the precondition of success in all intellectual activity. It may even have a greater role than believed in the least understood human talent: creativity, that is, artistic creation and scientific discovery. — Kato Lomb

Creative thinking - in terms of idea creativity - is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured. — Edward De Bono

And though creative writing as an intellectual exercise may be pursued with profit by anyone, writing as a profession is not a job for amateurs, dilettantes, part-time thinkers, 25-watt feelers, the lazy, the insensitive, or the imitative. It is for the creative, and creativity implies both talent and hard work. — Wallace Stegner

In every artist's life, there comes a person who lifts the
curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing
me again.
The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a
brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which
you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain,
you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting
passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same. — Mitch Albom

Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce, and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: make art. Being an artist isn't a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It's an attitude we can all adopt. It's a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you're an artist, no matter what it says on your business card. — Seth Godin

Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells. — Teresa Amabile

Create and nurture an environment in your organization where curiosity is encouraged, and creative thinking is rewarded. — Pearl Zhu

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune - and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius - lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about. — Ed Catmull

Creativity, imagination and talent can only get you so far -- you still need luck and money -- And that's why they call it Show Business and not Show Art — Wayne J. Keeley