FRANK's Components of Creativity

by Frank | May 16, 2020, 4:37 PM

In 1986, while living in Zaire (now DR 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. My collection now includes more than 30,000 quotations and features sets of quotations from more than 2,500 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 stimulate your creativity by reflecting on 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
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 collecting information

Foraging is . . .

• being on the outlook and exploring your environment for new ideas;
• seeking inspiration through nature;
• getting an education,
• developing your abilities and talents.

Here are some quotes which illustrate the spirit of Foraging . . .

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One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. --A.A. Milne 

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Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught. -Oscar Wilde 

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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 

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Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. -Anna Freud 

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Anyone can look for history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store. - Robert Wieder 

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• Reflecting is generating lots of ideas

Reflecting is . . .

• questioning the information which you have collected;
• using your imagination;
• thinking, pondering, and daydreaming;
• brainstorming and "what-if-ing."

Some good examples of Reflecting quotes are:

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Imagination rules the world. -Napoleon Bonaparte 

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There is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.-Kingman Brewster 

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It may be that those who do most, dream most. Stephen Leacock 

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One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. -Friedrich Neitzsche 

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Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. -Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

 

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• Adopting is embracing an idea

Adopting means . . .

• selecting among your generated ideas;
• making decisions;
• borrowing ideas from others;
• inventing and innovating.

Some Adopting quotes which I particularly like are:

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It is the function of creative man to perceive and to connect the seemingly unconnected. -William Plommer 

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An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. -Francois Rene Chateaubriand 

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Inventions that are not made, like babies that are not born, are not missed. - John Kenneth Galbraith 

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Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful. -Niccolo Machiavelli 

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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

 

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• Nurturing is improving your idea

Nurturing requires . . .

• objectively evaluating an idea and rejecting what doesn't work;
• simplifying the over-complicated;
• lots of hard work;
• failing and trying again (over and over again).

Some good Nurturing quotes are:

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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. -Charles Mingus 

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Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all. -Charles Babbage 

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Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams. - Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

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A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. -Saki (H. H. Munro)

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• Knuckling Down is never giving up

Knuckling Down means . . .

• marketing your idea;
• dealing with critics;
• maturing with courage and patience; and
• surviving success.

Some particularly fine quotes about Knuckling Down are:

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Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. -Dale Carnegie 

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I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. -Bill Cosby 

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God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. -Elbert Hubbard 

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Eighty percent of success is showing up. -Woody Allen