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The Components of Creativity
(An Introduction to Creative Quotations)
 
In 1986, while living in Zaire (now Congo), I made my first quotation calendar as a gift for my wife. Browsing through a copy of The Shorter Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, I became hooked on quotes, especially quotes about creativity. I now have 20,000 quotations in my collection, and have prepared sets Creative Quotations for 1,400 famous people. Each quotation is carefully selected and linked to one of  five components of creativity (see table below).

Creative Quotations to Inspire Creative Thinking are designed to learn from the insights of famous creative people:
 

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages may be preserved in quotations.
-- Isaac D'Israeli.
 
Creative Quotations also challenge readers to look for connections between quotations and the creative process:
Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.
--William Plomer.
 
Foraging is 
gathering information 
Reflecting is generating lots of ideas 
Adopting is 
selecting an idea 
Nurturing is 
improving your idea 
Knuckling Down is never giving up
R N K
Man must go back to nature for information.
-Thomas Paine		 I dream for a living.
  -Steven Spielburg		 I invent nothing. 
I rediscover.
-Auguste Rodin 		 There is a right physical size for every idea.
-Henry Moore		 A thick skin 
is a gift from God.
-Adenauer Konrad
Foraging is . . . Here are some quotes which illustrate the spirit of Foraging . . .
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. --A.A. Milne 
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. -Oscar Wilde 
It takes little talent to see what is under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in what direction to point that organ. -W.H. Auden 
Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. -Anna Freud 
Anyone can look for history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store. - Robert Wieder 
Reflecting is . . . Some good examples of Reflecting quotes are:
Imagination rules the world. -Napoleon Bonaparte 
There is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.-Kingman Brewster 
It may be that those who do most, dream most. Stephen Leacock 
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. -Friedrich Neitzsche 
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. -Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Adopting means . . . Some Adopting quotes which I particularly like are:
It is the function of creative man to perceive and to connect the seemingly unconnected. -William Plommer 
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. -Francois Rene Chateaubriand 
Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are not missed. - John Kenneth Galbraith 
Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful. -Niccolo Machiavelli 
I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain. When I felt I held enough cards I determined to pass to action, and did so. -Claude Monet

Nurturing requires . . . Some good Nurturing quotes are:
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. -Charles Mingus 
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all. -Charles Babbage 
Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams. - Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. -Saki (H. H. Munro)
Knuckling Down means . . . Some particularly fine quotes about Knuckling Down are:
Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. -Dale Carnegie 
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -Bill Cosby 
God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. -Elbert Hubbard 
Eighty percent of success is showing up. -Woody Allen 




copyright 1996, 1997, 1998  by Franklin C. Baer, Baertracks at bemorecreative.com