To the creative individual all experience is seminal- all events are equidistant from new ideas and insights...

To the creative individual all experience is seminal- all events are equidistant from new ideas and insights...

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle read more

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.

What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a read more

What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their read more

Persons of high self-esteem are not driven to make themselves superior to others; they do not seek to prove their value by measuring themselves against a comparative standard. Their joy is being who they are, not in being better than someone else.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which read more

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it read more

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion- in the long run, these are the only people who count.

Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance read more

Children sweeten labours; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the care of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts; but memory, merit, and noble works, are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed.