45 Short Quotes About Creativity For a Dose of Inspiration

We’ve all been there. Staring at an empty page. A blank canvas. Waiting for inspiration to strike.

Some days I feel bursting with creative energy, and other days I feel like the tank is empty. As I’ve found, creativity is something you can’t force.

I find quotes helpful to remind me of this fact. That sometimes, all you need is a change of perspective. Or to step away and let the dots connect.

That’s why I’ve put together this list of short quotes about creativity.

May they inspire creativity or point you in the right direction.

Quotes About Creativity

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

Without freedom, there is no creation.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

Edward de Bono

Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction.

Pablo Picasso

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.

Maya Angelou

Creativity is just connecting things.

Steve Jobs

Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.

Pablo Picasso

If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much.

Steve Jobs

In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude.

Rollo May

True creativity often starts where language ends.

Arthur Koestler

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.

George Bernard Shaw

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

Erich Fromm

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.

John Cleese

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.

Leo Burnett

You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.

Jack London

The creative adult is the child who survived.

Ursula Le Guin

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.

Charles Mingus

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

Dr. Seuss

The comfort zone is the great enemy to creativity.

Dan Stevens

Imagination rules the world.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Ideas come from everything.

Alfred Hitchcock

The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.

Pablo Picasso

An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

Edwin Land

If it doesn’t sell; it isn’t creative.

David Ogilvy

Creativity is the art of concealing your source.

Coco Chanel

Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm.

Earl Nightingale

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

Scott Adams

Creativity takes courage.

Henri Matisse

Creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness.

Julia Cameron

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

Rita Mae Brown

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.

Bruce Garrabrandt

Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.

Dorothy Parker

Everything you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

Julia Cameron

Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.

T. S. Eliot

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

Bill Moyers

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

Ray Bradbury

Creativity doesn’t wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones.

Bruce Garrabrandt

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.

William Plomer

To be creative means to be in love with life.

Osho

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.

Cecil B. DeMille

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas.

Donatella Versace

Replace fear with curiosity.

Steven Spielberg

Parting Words

Hopefully you’ve found some insight or inspiration in this collection.

Personally, I find switching environments very conducive to creativity. Sometimes this involves relocating to a brand new country, while other times it can be as simple as changing rooms.

I find that by living as a flaneur, my creative juices stay flowing. If I’m living out the same routine day after day, my creativity tends to be more squandered. I prefer to view life through a fresh lens each day (to the extent that’s possible).

The insights and perspectives you gain by relaxing your need to force things can help permeate more aspects of your life — not just your creative pursuits.

What other quotes about creativity would you add to the list? Let me know in the comments!

P.S. If you liked this, you might also enjoy these other related quote collections:

• Quotes About Walking
• Quotes About Nonconformity
• Quotes About Exploration
• Quotes About Observing
• Quotes About the Mind and Psychology

Originally published September 4, 2019. The date of the last significant edit is reflected at the top of the post.