The Quotes I Keep Coming Back To Again and Again
Reading, soaking up knowledge, and forever chasing my curiosity leads me to act like a collector. I collect quotes and squirrel them away in notes and journals with the hope they will soak into my mind. Similarly to sharing the books that have most impacted me in my life, I thought collecting some of the quotes I love would be valuable to share. I’ve also added some thoughts as to why I like each quote to anchor how I’ve thought about them.
“Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
I love this Emerson quote because it aligns closely with my value of prioritizing candor. So often we feel doubt in ourselves, imposters syndrome, that we fail to share our thoughts with others. As the years pass you may find yourself listening to others lead ideas forward that you had been thinking about. It reinforces the vulnerability it takes to share and be wrong rather than the shame of missing an opportunity to speak up.
“It is a mistake to conceive of choice and decision-making as a process of selecting from existing options according to a fixed formula. That omits the most important element of decision-making, namely the creation of new options.”
― David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
The Beginning of Infinity is one of my favorite books. The optimism David Deutsch presents through the value and potential of our human creativity gives me such excitement as a maker. So often in our pursuits are we left feeling like the choices we have to select from suck. This quotes sums up the reminder that we can always create new options.
“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual
mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man. And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions,
forced direction, and the stunning hammerblows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Nowadays, it is fashion to pretend that no single individual is ever responsible for a successful advertising campaign. This emphasis on teamwork is bunk, a conspiracy of the mediocre majority. No ad, no commercial, and no image can be created by committee.
― David Ogilvy
Collaboration is very often the spark, the input material, the tinder, but is never or rarely the source of great work. Individual minds bring forth the most unique ideas and that should be more widely accepted. It is not about lone geniuses making breakthroughs in isolation, but rather that a single, prepared mind is the origin of all great creativity. There is no denying ideas are built on the shoulders of all who came before it, but newness comes best from no committee.
“The Taoists have another saying that is also well worth considering. ‘Love,’ they say, ‘is creating without owning.’
If you truly love your work, you must learn to create it without owning it. You must learn not to confuse your preoccupation with bringing it to life and the natural ripening process of the creation itself.”
― Kent Nerburn, Dancing With The Gods
We’re creators for people who use our products. We’re listeners of feedback and critique from our peers, leads, and users. To love the work is to love making, and the evolving nature of the work we make. It’s not meant to be permanent, it’s meant to be created and solve problems.
It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that in the afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak.
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Everything good takes time. Learning and developing taste, excellence in craft, building wonderful projects, etc. all take significant time to achieve maturity and mastery.
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
― Marshall McLuhan
The element of opinion and subjectivity/experience can sometimes become a real problem when it is used to over-commit to a decision or direction without the deep clarity that is sometimes required.
