Creativity Quotes from Famous Leaders for Entrepreneurs

Looking for some amazing creativity quotes? Everyone has the power to increase their creativity skills. Whether you are a high tech entrepreneur or a barista, you can boost your creativity more than you might think. Like sharpening a saw, you can hone creativity into a razor-like edge.

Whatever your goal is — to uncover startup opportunities, create innovative products or boost sales — the more you work at being creative, the more creative you get.

But where do you start? You start by taking action. Break up your routine. Brainstorm with your team. Change a process without overthinking it. Don’t try to be perfect – just act! Use one of these creativity quotes to inspire you:

• If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. ~ Albert Einstein, Genius
• Let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday. ~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder Apple
• If you know too much before the start, then you will get overwhelmed. Come up with an original idea, and don’t copy because there will be no passion. You need that otherworldly passion. Just start. ~ Jeni Britton Bauer, Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams
• If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop. ~ Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn
• There is something artificial when everyone is agreeing with each other. It’s useful to indulge people who don’t agree, and see their viewpoint or force yourself to explain things better. ~ David Sack, Founder of Yammer
• Being a woman in business doesn’t come without challenges. My advice? Surround yourself with other supportive women that encourage you, share ideas, and get you motivated. ~ Jessica Alba, Founder of The Honest Company
• It’s very important for entrepreneurs to look for people in the company who are not afraid of failures, for example, ‘intrapreneurs’. They make a business more successful by thinking like an entrepreneur, but within a company. ~ Chirag Kulkarni, Founder of Taco
• Creativity gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product, and differentiating your business from the competition. ~ Linda Naiman, Founder of Creativity at Work
• Each of you, curious about creativity, want to make contact with that thing in yourself that is truly original. You want fame and fortune, yes, but only as rewards for work well and truly done. Notoriety and a fat bank balance must come after everything else is finished and done. That means that they cannot even be considered while you are at the typewriter. ~ Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction Author
• The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants. ~ Roger von Oech, Creative Toy-Maker and Author
• Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it. ~ Salvador Dali

Creativity Quotes About Fun and Passion

Successful entrepreneurs see the connection between fun and creativity. Creativity explodes when you encourage others to be happily passionate about their jobs. Something about positive emotions gets our creative juices flowing in business and in life.

Play music. Draw on a whiteboard like an artist. Bring your child to the office. Say something funny in a meeting. In the words of singer Marija, dance like nobody’s watching! Pick a creativity quote to free yourself to have fun:

• Creativity is intelligence having fun! ~ Albert Einstein, Genius
• A business has to be evolving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative interests. ~ Richard Branson, Entrepreneur and Business Magnate
• If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. ~ John Cleese, Co-Founder of Monty Python
• Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business. ~ Leo Burnett, The Leo Burnett Company
• Play widens the halls. Work will always be with us, and many works are worthy. But the worthiest works of all often reflect an artful creativity that looks more like play than work. ~ James Ogilvy, British Landscape Designer
• Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better. ~ John Updike , Novelist
• Business isn’t some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine, a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But ‘enterprise’ (a lovely word) is about heart. About beauty. It’s about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It’s about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal. ~ Tom Peters, Business Management Author
• Passion, creativity, and resilience are the most crucial skills in business. If you’ve got those, you’re ready to embark on the journey. ~ Jo Malone, Founder of Jo Malone Perfume and Scented Candles
• Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. ~ Charles Mingus, Jazz Composer and Musician
• Great is the human who has not lost his child-like heart. ~ Mencius, Chinese Philosopher

Be a Rule Breaker for Creativity

Years ago, Apple created a famous advertisement called “Think Different” reinforcing the concept of creativity by being unique. The narrator started out “Here’s to the crazy ones, the rebels, the troublemakers.” The ad is an ode to creative people who work and live differently. So get started breaking rules with one of these creativity quotes for inspiration:

• Learn the rules like a pro, break them like an artist. ~ Pablo Picasso, World Famous Artist
• Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. ~ Steve Jobs
• Creativity takes courage. ~ Henri Matisse, Artist
• Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. ~ Frank Tyger, Editorial Cartoonist and Humorist
• Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde, Author
• All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise we would never have anything new. ~ Charles Kettering, Inventor and Co-Founder of Delco
• The achievement of excellence can only occur if the organization promotes a culture of creative dissatisfaction. ~ Lawrence Miller, Management and Leadership Writer
• It’s better to be a pirate than join the navy. ~ Steve Jobs
• Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye. ~ Dorothy Parker, Author
• If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ~ Wayne Walter Dyer, Self-Help Author and Motivational Speaker
• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. ~ Steve Jobs
• The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good’ sense. ~ Pablo Picasso
• That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time. ~ John Stuart Mill, British Philosopher

Creativity Quotes for Problem Solving

Every business encounters problems along the road to success. Which businesses continue on down the road or get waylaid is determined by whether the people in them are good problem solvers. The following creativity quotes suggest that instead of striving for creativity, we should try to solve problems:

• If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life. ~ Brian Chesky, Co-Founder of Airbnb
• To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science. ~ Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist
• Do not focus on numbers. Focus on doing what you do best. It’s about building a community who want to visit your site every day because you create value and offer expertise. ~ Cassey Ho, Founder of Blogilates
• If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems. ~ Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist
• Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. ~ George Lois, Art Director and Designer
• Innovation – any new idea – by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience. ~ Warren Bennis, Scholar and Organizational Consultant
• The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams. ~ W. Arthur Porter, Teacher and Businessman
• Companies that recognize the need to be creative about their businesses are going to pursue this creative thinking with us or without us. It’s our collective responsibility, our collective future to make sure they choose to do it with us. ~ Bob Schmetterer, Business Executive and Former Chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide
• Creativity and innovation are about finding unexpected solutions to obvious problems, or finding obvious solutions to unexpected problems. We should use our creativity to provide better businesses and solutions rather than constantly trying to disrupt what people are doing. ~ Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer of AKQA
• Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. ~ Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers Animator
• The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. ~ John Maynard Keynes, British Economist
• Prematurely settle on an idea because of work overload or deadline pressure, and it is likely to resemble what already exists. ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business at Harvard Business School

Creativity is an Attitude

How many times has someone said, “I’m not very creative”? You may have played that line in your own head countless times. In fact, something like that may be true only because you told yourself it is true. In the words of renowned poet Sylvia Plath, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Replace doubts with a positive attitude that being creative is good and you have untapped creativity. When you need to give your creativity a little inspiration, read or share these motivational and creative quotes:

• Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not – because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized. ~ Ken Robinson, Educator
• The thing we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity. ~ Meg Wheatley, Management Consultant and Writer
• The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions. ~ Anthony Jay, English Writer, Broadcaster and Director
• Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. ~ Albert Einstein
• The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses. ~ Edith Södergran, Finnish Poet
• The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard, Salesman, Publisher and Founder of Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community
• One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language. ~ Pierre Omidyar, Billionaire Entrepreneur and Founder of eBay
• Ideas and creativity still matter a lot, but they need to be connected to technology, consumer insights, and analytics. ~ Christopher Vollmer, Managing Director of Medialink
• Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found. ~ James Russell Lowell, Poet and Diplomat
• Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. ~ Jim Jarmusch, Film Director
• There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. ~ Edward de Bono, Maltese Business Consultant, Physician and Inventor

The Best Way to Have a Good Idea is…

Last but not least, brilliant minds and entrepreneurs often agree. People get more creative by exercising their creativity, as these creativity quotes highlight:

• The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. ~ Dr. Linus Pauling, Chemist and Educator
• You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. ~ Maya Angelou, Poet
• You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?” ~George Bernard Shaw, Playwright

The Importance of Creativity in Business

Ways You Could Use These Creativity Quotes

• Morning Kick-Start: Begin each morning team meeting with a quote of the day. Discuss its relevance and how it applies to current tasks or challenges.
• Office Decor: Create posters or wall decals with selected quotes to constantly inspire and remind employees of the importance of creativity.
• Email Signatures: Rotate different creativity quotes in the company’s email signatures to share inspiration with both employees and clients.
• Brainstorming Sessions: Initiate brainstorming sessions with a quote, urging team members to think outside the box and not fear mistakes.
• Recognition and Rewards: Acknowledge and reward employees who exhibit creative thinking. Accompany their reward with a relevant quote card.
• Training Sessions: Incorporate these quotes into training materials and presentations, emphasizing the importance of innovative thinking.
• Creative Challenges: Introduce monthly challenges where employees can propose solutions or innovations to existing problems. Use a quote as the theme.
• Company Newsletters: Feature a creativity quote in each issue of the company newsletter along with a brief success story that exemplifies the quote.
• Social Media Inspiration: Share these quotes on the company’s social media platforms, engaging followers and showcasing your company’s commitment to creativity.

Want more good quotes and sayings? Read: