This list is for artists and people who don’t yet know they’re artists. We’ve listed the big quotes as images, and then listed some others we like below them.
All quotes are attributed accurately to speakers… Rare, we know! If you find any discrepancies at all, please let us know immediately. Hoping this list brings you some creative inspiration, love, and light 🙂
1. “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso
2. “At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.” – Jean Houston
3. “To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
4. “The noun of self becomes a verb. The flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch
5. “Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness – I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.” – Aaron Copland
6. “It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard.” – May Sarton
7. “There is no must in art because art is free.” – Wassily Kandinsky
8. “The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” – Oscar Wilde
9. “Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.” – Robbie Gass
10. “The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch
11. “You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.” – Anne Wilson Schaef
12. “Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.” – William Bridges
13. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
14. “The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.” – Piet Mondrian
15. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
16. “Eliminate something superfluous from your life. Break a habit. Do something that makes you feel insecure.” – Piero Ferrucci
17. “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
18. “The function of the creative artist consists of making laws, not in following laws already made.” – Ferruccio Busoni
19. “Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable.” – Brenda Ueland
20. “The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf.” – Shakti Gawain
21. “Trust that still, small voice that says, ‘This might work and I’ll try it.'” – Diane Mariechild
22. “Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage.” – Claude M. Bristol
23. “Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven’t tried before.” – Mae West
24. “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” – Jalal Ud-Din Rumi
25. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
26. “Desire, ask, believe, receive.” – Stella Terrill Mann
27. “Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur
28. “There is the risk you cannot afford to take, [and] there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.” – Peter Druckler
29. “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
30. “An affirmation is a strong, positive statement that something is already so.” – Shakti Gawain
