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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Quotes about Creativity

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If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring

If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos -and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Light, Color White

Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives...most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity...when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Art, Creativity, Rest Of Life

To be creative, a person has to internalize the entire system that makes creativity possible. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Art, Creativity, Hands
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1996). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention”, Harpercollins

Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time... Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Smart, Responsibility, Creativity

Problems are solved only when we devote a great deal of attention to them and in a creative way...to have a good life, it is not enough to remove what is wrong with it. We also need a positive goal, otherwise why keep going? Creativity is one answer to that question - It provides one of the most exciting models for living.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Good Life, Creativity, Goal

For better or worse, our future is now closely tied to human creativity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Our Future, Humans
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2009). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and”, p.6, Harper Collins

When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Rest Of Life, Living More
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2009). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and”, p.2, Harper Collins

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk-the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behaviour, the second can wilt if not cultivated.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Encouragement, Creativity, Self
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2009). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and”, p.11, Harper Collins

Studying creativity is not an elite distraction, but provides one of the most exciting models for living.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Study, Distraction

Creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain, or that transforms an existing domain into a new one What counts is whether the novelty he or she produces is accepted for inclusion in the domain.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Ideas, Novelty
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2009). “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and”, p.28, Harper Collins

And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical knowledge immersion in a particular field.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity, Years, Creating

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