Great Throughts Treasury

"The willingness to take the risk of being wrong and perhaps subjected to ridicule, punishment, or loss is an outstanding trait of the creative person. Such action does not mean to behave on foolish impulse, but to calculate the risks and then to take a chance."

"The use of creativity as an instrument for personal and social gain is by no means the whole story. In its deeper philosophical implications, creativity is a quest for meaning. It is an attempt to penetrate the mystery of the self, and perhaps the even greater mystery of Being."

"The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person."

"The refusal to choose is a form of choice; disbelief is a form of belief."

"To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are."

"Never take a person's dignity: it is worth everything to them, and nothing to you."