A Little Creative Inspiration

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after growing up." 

~ Pablo Picasso

I'm in the process of building a new website to house both my professional and creative endeavors--a slow process so far but a great way to think more deeply about who I think I am and who I want to be.  So I've not only been reviewing my current website--long in need of an overhaul--but the one that preceded it as well (you can take a peek here), which at one point flashed my favorite quotes on creativity. These were the quotes that inspired me as a younger man, and I thought I would share them here in hopes that they'll inspire you too...

 "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique...It is your business…to keep the channel open." ~ Martha Graham

"Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah. It makes no difference what people think of you." ~ Rumi

"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~ Ursula Le Guin

"I have friends who are intelligent people, were English majors, art majors--and they get to be 25, 29, 30, and they've got no life. There's nowhere to put all that beauty and poetry. [Don't just] go to work, come home, get up in the morning and do it all over again."

~ Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows

"If only we were given the chance to be in our work with the full force of our personality, mind and body, heart and soul...what a power would be released in the world." ~ Theodore Roszak

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play." ~Heraclitus

"A childlike man is not a man whose development has been arrested; he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle age habit and convention." ~Aldous Huxley

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure." ~Joseph Campbell

And here are a few more recent good quotes about creativity in the workplace:

"Fostering creativity is not something you can do with a memo. It's really a matter of not squashing or slapping down people whenever they have an idea." ~Scott Adams, Dilbert

"The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible, more or less simultaneously. Of course, the hard part is figuring out when to be which." ~Jeff Bezos

"The real returns come from harnessing the imagination of every single employee every single day." ~Gary Hamel

"What matters is creating an island of imagination amid a sea of today's prosaic demands." ~John Kao

"It is our imagination and creativity which will open the doors to progress, to new products and services, to new worldwide markets, to new ways of communicating, to new ways of preserving our environment and resources." ~Joyce Wycoff

"Creativity is basically subversive. So you have to have subversive elements in the organization to keep yourself awake and evolving." ~Dan Wieden