The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “creativity”

Visionary Photographer Edward Weston on the Importance of Cross-Disciplinary Curiosity in Creative Work
Visionary Photographer Edward Weston on the Importance of Cross-Disciplinary Curiosity in Creative Work

“In this age of communication… who can be free from influence, — preconception? But — it all depends upon what one does with this cross-fertilization: — is it digested, or does it bring indigestion?”

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Art and the Nocturnal Imagination: Painter, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on Dreaming and Creativity
Art and the Nocturnal Imagination: Painter, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on Dreaming and Creativity

“The logic of dreams is superior to the one we exercise while awake. In dreams the mind at last finds its courage: it dares what we do not dare.”

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Wordsworth on Genius and the Creative Responsibility of Elevating Taste
Wordsworth on Genius and the Creative Responsibility of Elevating Taste

“To create taste is to call forth and bestow power, of which knowledge is the effect; and there lies the true difficulty.”

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The Only Story in the World: John Steinbeck on Kindness, Good and Evil, the Wellspring of Good Writing
The Only Story in the World: John Steinbeck on Kindness, Good and Evil, the Wellspring of Good Writing

“Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.”

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George Eliot on Form, Poetry, and How Art Reveals the Interrelated Parts of the Whole
George Eliot on Form, Poetry, and How Art Reveals the Interrelated Parts of the Whole

“Form, as an element of human experience, must begin with the perception of separateness.”

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“Berryman” by W.S. Merwin: Some of the Finest and Most Soul-Salving Advice on How to Stay Sane as an Artist
“Berryman” by W.S. Merwin: Some of the Finest and Most Soul-Salving Advice on How to Stay Sane as an Artist

Tonic for living with that sacred, terrifying uncertainty with which all creative work enters the world.

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Incubation, Ideation, and the Art of Editing: Beethoven on Creativity
Incubation, Ideation, and the Art of Editing: Beethoven on Creativity

“I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time, sometimes a very long time, before I set them down.”

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Borges on Turning Trauma, Misfortune, and Humiliation into Raw Material for Art
Borges on Turning Trauma, Misfortune, and Humiliation into Raw Material for Art

“All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”

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Walt Whitman on Creativity
Walt Whitman on Creativity

Wisdom “for strong artists and leaders — for fresh broods of teachers… and coming musicians.”

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A Flash of Illumination on the Greyhound Bus: Physicist Freeman Dyson on Creative Breakthrough and the Unconscious Mind
A Flash of Illumination on the Greyhound Bus: Physicist Freeman Dyson on Creative Breakthrough and the Unconscious Mind

“It is strange the way ideas come when they are needed.”

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