101 Powerful Creativity Quotes to Motivate and Inspire You

Craving creativity quotes?

An inspirational creativity quote can “rouse you into productivity and creativity.” (Mary Garden)

And if one doesn’t do it, maybe the other hundred will!

Here’s my compendium of 101 creativity quotes:

• Albert Einstein creativity quotes
• Steve Jobs creativity quotes
• More famous creativity quotes
• Creativity quotes, short and sweet for tweets!

Plus quote images that you can share on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. Just hover the image and you’ll see the share button in the center.*

So don’t wallow in your creative block – get out there and make something! As Elizabeth Gilbert would say (and did), “It doesn’t have to be amazing, it just has to be authentic.”

*NOTE: Do NOT use my quote graphics without linking to this page, which happens automatically if you use the share buttons. Read my copyright.

Illustrated quotes copyright of and used with permission of Positively Present. Follow, and become a Patreon!

101 Creativity Quotes by and for Creatives

Creativity Quotes by Einstein

Famous Einstein quotes abound online.

The only problem is – Einstein never said most of them!

Interestingly, I was able to find more definitive information on fake Einstein quotes than on ones he actually said! To my knowledge, the following group of quotes attributed to Einstein have yet to be debunked.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. ~Albert Einstein

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it. ~Albert Einstein

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. ~Albert Einstein

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. ~Albert Einstein

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created. ~Albert Einstein

Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. ~Albert Einstein

Creativity is contagious, pass it on. ~Albert Einstein

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. ~Albert Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge. ~Albert Einstein

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ~Albert Einstein

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough. ~Albert Einstein

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning. ~Albert Einstein

For more, read fake Einstein quotes and learn a little about his life.

Our thanks to MyMathDone for the brilliant infographic at the end of this post – and also for introducing me to the awesome anagram Albert Einstein = Ten Elite Brains.

Creativity Quotes by Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was the visionary creator of Apple products.

Read on for the best quotes from Mr. Jobs.

Creativity is just connecting things. ~Steve Jobs

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

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. ~Steve Jobs

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. ~Steve Jobs

The way to ratchet up our species is to get better things to more people  – products with spirit and creativity. ~Steve Jobs

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. ~Steve Jobs

Stay hungry, stay foolish. ~Steve Jobs

It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. ~Steve Jobs

It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy. ~Steve Jobs

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me. ~Steve Jobs

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. ~Steve Jobs

I want to put a ding in the universe. ~Steve Jobs

Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles. ~Steve Jobs

Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. ~Steve Jobs

Innovation is saying no to a thousand things. ~Steve Jobs

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. ~Steve Jobs

Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. ~Steve Jobs

If today were the last of your life, would you do what you were going to do today? ~Steve Jobs

It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions. ~Steve Jobs

It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. ~Steve Jobs

To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. ~Steve Jobs

Invest time in yourself to have great experiences that are going to enrich you. ~Steve Jobs

The most important thing is a person. A person who incites and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can. ~Steve Jobs

Illustrated quotes used with permission of Positively Present. Follow, and become a Patreon!

Short Creativity Quotes

I love short, tweetable quotes. Short is also the perfect length to make picture quotes!

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things. ~Ray Bradbury

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. ~Marilyn Monroe

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting. ~Edward de Bono

The comfort zone is the great enemy to creativity. ~Dan Stevens

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~Erich Fromm

The chief enemy of creativity is good sense. ~Pablo Picasso

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life. ~Sophia Loren

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

Anxiety is part of creativity, the need to get something out. ~David Duchovny

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. ~James Russell Lowell

Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity. ~T. S. Eliot

Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is. ~Mason Cooley

Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity. ~Jean Dubuffet

This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity. ~Edward de Bono

Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity. ~Bo Bennett

Creativity is breaking out of established patterns to look at things in a different way. ~Edward de Bono

If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too. ~Jimmy Buffett

Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas. ~Donatella Versace

Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. ~Greg Anderson

Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. ~Charles Mingus

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. ~Edward de Bono

When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. ~Julia Margaret Cameron

Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm. ~Earl Nightingale

Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty. ~Bryant H. McGill

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature. ~Eric Hoffer

Creativity takes courage. ~Henri Matisse

It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity. ~Mary Garden

Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. ~Daisaku Ikeda

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. ~John Updike

Energy is the key to creativity. Energy is the key to life. ~William Shatner

Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity. ~Edwin Land

People have a God-given right to use their creativity to produce things that improve our lives. ~Paul Ryan

Creativity is what helps me escape a lot of my inner demons. ~Demi Lovato

I go wherever my creativity takes me. ~Lil Wayne

Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it. ~Dee Hock

I try to manage my day by my circadian rhythms because the creativity is such an elusive thing. ~Scott Adams

The artistry and the creativity in a story are better than any drugs. ~Wentworth Miller

Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience. ~Masaru Ibuka

Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar. ~Nnamdi Azikiwe

Punishing honest mistakes stifles creativity. ~Ross Perot

To be creative means to be in love with life. ~Osho

The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature. ~Julia Cameron

Can’t kills creativity! ~Camille Paglia

Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results – the only thing it craves is the process. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. ~Yoko Ono

The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation. ~Robert Iger

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~Maya Angelou

Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible. ~Ben Okri

We have the capacity for infinite creativity. ~Jackie Gleason

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous. ~Bill Moyers

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. ~Rita Mae Brown

I’ve found constancy and balance between creativity and normality. ~Julian Lennon

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. ~Herman Melville

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties. ~Gail Sheehy

A creative life is an amplified life. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

I don’t know what I think until I write about it. ~Joan Didion

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. ~Theodore Levitt

Creativity is the natural order of life. ~Julia Cameron

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

Without freedom, there is no creation. ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

Creative living is where Big Magic will always abide. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Every day is an opportunity to be creative. ~Innerspace

Creativity can solve almost any problem. ~George Lois

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

Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try. ~Dr. Seuss

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. ~Edward de Bono

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. ~Brene Brown

The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. ~Abe Tannenbaum

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. ~Victor Hugo

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. ~Peter F. Drucker

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without. ~Cecil B. DeMille

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. ~Nikos Kazantzakis

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. ~John F. Kennedy

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea. ~Edward de Bono

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

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. ~Bertrand Russell

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~Joseph Chilton Pierce

Life is trying things to see if they work. ~Ray Bradbury

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~John Maynard Keynes

A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations. ~Gerald G. Jampolsky

It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to. ~Jean-Luc Godard

If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. ~Oscar Wilde

Truly creative people care a little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. ~Alan Cohen

Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God. ~Julia Cameron

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. ~Pablo Picasso

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. ~Voltaire

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

Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. ~Julia Cameron

Quotes on Creativity: Conclusion

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