text:
Competition

Competition is the rivalry of two or more parties over something. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which coexist in the same environment. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, and mates. In addition, humans compete for attention, wealth, prestige, and fame, or as a form of recreation. Competition is often considered to be the opposite of cooperation, however wherever the world is dominated by corporations & extreme wealth, mixtures of cooperation, competition, & corruption are the norm.

A

 * The word competition itself is already dangerous; in it is expressed jealousy, in other words, a corrupt devotion. Therefore, it is best wherever possible to replace the concept of competition with that of perfectionment. 134.
 * Agni Yoga, Fiery World II

B

 * Unity, peace and security will come through the recognition — intelligently assessed—of the evils which have led to the present world situation, and then through the taking of those wise, compassionate and understanding steps which will lead to the establishing of right human relations, to the substitution of cooperation for the present competitive system, and by the education of the masses in every land as to the nature of true goodwill and its hitherto unused potency.
 * What at this moment appears to prevent world unity... ? The answer is not hard to find and involves all nations: nationalism, capitalism, competition, blind stupid greed.The mass of men need arousing to see that good comes to all men alike and not just to a few privileged groups, and to learn also that "hatred ceases not by hatred but that hatred ceases by love".
 * The world economic council (or whatever body represents the resources of the world) must free itself from fraudulent politics, capitalistic influence and its devious scheming; it must set the resources of the earth free for the use of humanity. This will be a lengthy task but it will be possible when world need is better appreciated. An enlightened public opinion will make the decisions of the economic council practical and possible. Sharing and cooperation must be taught instead of greed and competition.
 * Alice Bailey in Problems Of Humanity, Chapter VI - The Problem of International Unity  (1944)

 * Competition is merely the absence of oppression.
 * Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, par. 10.4

 * Such a businessman has never become rich whose mouth was full of slander and his heart full of envy of success of the others, who could with great skill reveal the mistakes of his competitor. However that one has never been and will never be poor who serves his customers with words of cordial kindness and whose eyes can see rather the positive than the negative features of the competitor so that he could use them.
 * Tomas Bata (1928), translated and cited in: Tribus, Myron. "Lessons from Tomas Bata for the Modern Day Manager." Tvůrčí odkaz Tomáše Bati a současné podnikatelské metody (2001).

 * "The next of the great wastes was that from competition. The field of industry was a battlefield as wide as the world, in which the workers wasted, in assailing one another, energies which, if expended in concerted effort, as to-day, would have enriched all. As for mercy or quarter in this warfare, there was absolutely no suggestion of it. To deliberately enter a field of business and destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously, in order to plant one's own enterprise on their ruins, was an achievement which never failed to command popular admiration. Nor is there any stretch of fancy in comparing this sort of struggle with actual warfare, so far as concerns the mental agony and physical suffering which attended the struggle, and the misery which overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent on them. Now nothing about your age is, at first sight, more astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that men engaged in the same industry, instead of fraternizing as comrades and co-laborers to a common end, should have regarded each other as rivals and enemies to be throttled and overthrown. This certainly seems like sheer madness, a scene from bedlam.
 * Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888),  Chapter 22

 * The producers of the nineteenth century were not, like ours, working together for the maintenance of the community, but each solely for his own maintenance at the expense of the community.
 * Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888),  Chapter 22

 * Their system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as it was morally abominable. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production; and not till the idea of increasing the individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can industrial combination be realized, and the acquisition of wealth really begin. Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only humane and rational basis for a society, we should still enforce it as economically expedient, seeing that until the disintegrating influence of self-seeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible.'
 * Edward Bellamy in Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888),  Chapter 22

 * Wanting a haven for myself, I saw nothing that wasn’t laid claim to. Seeing nothing in the end but competition, I felt discontent. And then I saw an arrow here, so very hard to see, embedded in the heart. Overcome by this arrow you run in all directions. But simply on pulling it out you don’t run, you don’t sink.
 * Gautama Buddha, Sutta Nipata 4.15 Attadanda Sutta: The Rod Embraced, as translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

C

 * I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.
 * Jimmy Carter,  Our Endangered Values, p. 28

 * Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition.
 * Arthur Hugh Clough, "The Latest Decalogue", lines 19-20
 * Published in The Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough...Volume II: Poems (1869), page 186

D

 * If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
 * Eugene Debs, "The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech" in The Call (16 June 1918)

 * Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life — peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law.
 * Will Durant and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (1968)

E

 * And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person's envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
 * Ecclesiastes 4:4 NIV

 * In previous ages a nation's life and culture could be protected to some extent by the growth of armies in national competition. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster.
 * Albert Einstein; reported in Michael Amrine, "The Real Problem is in the Hearts of Man", New York Times Magazine (23 June 1946).

 * You have reduced the number of wars—to earn all the bigger profits in peace, to intensify to the utmost the enmity between individuals, the ignominious war of competition!
 * Friedrich Engels, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

 * The liberal economic system had done its best to universalise enmity, to transform mankind into a horde of ravenous beasts (for what else are competitors?).
 * Friedrich Engels, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

 * Competition – that is, a state of society in which everyone has the right to enter into any branch of industry, the only obstacle being a lack of the necessary capital. ... The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society. Free competition is necessary for the establishment of big industry, because it is the only condition of society in which big industry can make its way.
 * Friedrich Engels,  (1847)

 * Big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter.
 * Friedrich Engels,  (1847)

 * Abolish competition and replace it with association.
 * Friedrich Engels,  (1847)

 * Since the by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the  of goods.
 * Friedrich Engels,  (1847)

 * He who ignores a rival, does not get to eat everything up, like the bull which ignores the bull at its side. But he who acknowledges a contest can be the outright winner, like the bull which acknowledges the bull at its side.
 * Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, period (ca. 21st century BCE).

 * Prostitutes are the inevitable product of a society that places ultimate importance on money, possessions, and competition.
 * Jane Fonda, in Thomas Kiernan, Jane: An Intimate Biography of Jane Fonda (1970)

F

 * The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we may learn: 1st, Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and considers the consequences that may attend an action … 2nd, Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of action: — the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations; … 3rd, Caution, not to make our moves too hastily...
 * Benjamin Franklin, "The Morals of Chess" (article) (1750).

 * Competition is dangerous, socially offensive, considered right and normal, because you are brought up to that value system. What kind of competition did Jesus have? What kind of competition is there in your body? Suppose your brain said, "I'm the most important organ!" And the liver said, "I am. And I want a Free Enterprise system!" You'd rot away in a month if every organ of your body went out for itself.
 * Jacque Fresco (1974 Larry King Interview)

G

 * The dominant culture of the world teaches us that The Other is a threat, that our fellow human beings are a danger. We will all continue to be exiles in one form or another as long as we continue to accept the paradigm that the world is a racetrack or a battlefield.
 * Eduardo Galeano as interviewed by Jonah Raskin, "Saying More with Less," Monthly Review, vo. 61, n. 5, October 2009.

 * The world of antitrust is reminiscent of Alice’s Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn’t, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet "too much" competition is condemned as "cutthroat." It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, yet praised as "enlightened" when initiated by the government. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge’s verdict—after the fact.
 * Alan Greenspan "Antitrust", essay at the National Association of Business Economists (25 September 1961); published in Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

H

 * In fact, a growing number of academics and practitioners have concluded that neoliberal economic theory is dangerously wrong and that today's growing crises of rising inequality and growing political instability are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory. What we now know is that the economics that made me so rich isn't just wrong, it's backwards, because it turns out it isn't capital that creates economic growth, it's people; and it isn't self-interest that promotes the public good, it's reciprocity; and it isn't competition that produces our prosperity, it's cooperation. What we can now see is that an economics that is neither just nor inclusive can never sustain the high levels of social cooperation necessary to enable a modern society to thrive.
 * Now, the old economics is correct, of course, that competition plays a crucial role in how markets work, but what it fails to see is that it is largely a competition between highly cooperative groups -- competition between firms, competition between networks of firms, competition between nations -- and anyone who has ever run a successful business knows that building a cooperative team by including the talents of everyone is almost always a better strategy than just a bunch of selfish jerks... So how do we leave neoliberalism behind and build a more sustainable, more prosperous and more equitable society? The new economics suggests just five rules of thumb...
 * Nick Hanauer in The dirty secret of capitalism -- and a new way forward Ted Talk, (July 2019)
 * Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 92, 44 N.E. 1077, 1080 (1896) (opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts).

J

 * Capitalist-private property relations are the source of class inequalities, which is the primary factor in my being a member of a class that bears all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages. Under the influence of illegitimate-capitalist values, I was pursuing the alleviation of social-economic hardship through individual advancement. This is a wholly inadequate remedy to social problems because it doesn’t challenge the fundamental injustice of class-exploitation and class-oppression, which are responsible for creating the socio-economic ills in the first place. Unaware of my class interest, I was perpetuating my own oppression by engaging in competitive capitalist practices that ensure the smooth functioning of the system as the exploiting minority profits in more ways than one off the division and disunity engendered by competition, so prevalent amongst the exploited. Look around: competition, euphemistically called “individuality,” permeates and is systematically promoted to the masses of people while the corporate conglomerations and Fortune 500 are busy “merging and monopolizing.”
 * Kevin Rashid Johnson, Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

K

 * Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition — in having to put forth the best within you to match the deeds of risk-taking, hard-working competitors.
 * Henry J. Kaiser, in: DeWitt Wallace, Lila Acheson Wallace (1950), The Reader's Digest, Vol. 56, p. 18

 * The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.
 * W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy p. 4 (2016 extended edition)

 * In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will swallow you.
 * William S. Knudsen, quoted in: Arthur G. Bedeian (1989), Management, p. 133

 * Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased. The competitive spirit is merely an additive process which is not learning at all. We want the child to learn and not merely add knowledge to himself like a machine. To help the child to learn basically and fundamentally he must cease to compete, with all its implications... Competitiveness is destructive not only in the classroom but right through life.
 * Jiddu Krishnamurti in Krishnamurti on Education, Talks to Teachers

M

 * Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm.
 * C. Wright Mills, White Collar: The American Middle Classes (1951), p. 36

 * The production of security should, in the interests of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition. ... No government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity.
 * Gustave de Molinari, tr. J.Huston McCulloch, §II of The Production of Security (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009; orig. 1849), Pages 22–23.

R

 * Whoever claims that economic competition represents "survival of the fittest" in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence of his lack of knowledge of economics.
 * George Reisman, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

 * The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a competition in the grabbing off of scarce nature-given supplies, as it is in the animal kingdom. Rather, it is a competition in the positive creation of new and additional wealth.
 * George Reisman, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)

 * Success is whatever humiliation everyone has agreed to compete for.
 * James Richardson, Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001), #135

 * You must not envy each other. But of course it depends on each of you to develop your capabilities. And the only lawful competition between members of the group may be a competition in the best direction of striving and understanding of the thought for the General Good. Each one should understand that this capacity in each individual consciousness is the only indicator of progress and that the spirit stands on a corresponding step-not higher and not lower.
 * Helena Roerich, Letters of Helena Roerich I, (3 December 1930)

 * To my knowledge significant progress has never been born of competition. … In science, being 'better' than others is of little practical value. Examples of how absurd the idea of scientific competition is are abundant.
 * Heinrich Rohrer, in Science - A Part of Our Future, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews Vol. 19, 193, 1994.

 * Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
 * Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Speech at the People's Forum in Troy, New York (March 3, 1912)

 * A man with no friends, only live for revenge Live his life off the henge, cut, through a thousand men Blade swing with the force of a cyclone Cut crystal and bone, pistol and chrome Stand in my path, you're a dead man I cut the whole world in half for the Number One headband Quest of a lonely soul, on a lonely road.
 * RZA, Afro Samurai Theme

S

 * A person whose mind is distracted lives between the fangs of mental afflictions. ... They feel envy toward a superior, competitiveness with a peer, arrogance toward one who is inferior, conceit due to praise and anger due to reproach. When could there be any benefit from a fool?
 * Santideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, V. Wallace and B. Wallace, trans. (1997), § 8

 * In economic life competition is never completely lacking, but hardly ever is it perfect.
 * Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Third Edition): Part IV, Chapter XXII, pg 271

 * Zero sum game implies winners and losers. If somebody wins, somebody gotta lose…. I don’t agree with that. Because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films help other good films. Different psychology. If you’re overly competitive, you say it is exclusionary, a zero sum game: I must win so he must lose. That’s not true. We can all win without forcing the other guy to lose.
 * Oliver Stone Wall Street DVD Director’s Commentary (2000)

 * Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant.
 * Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you.
 * Ancient Roman proverb ** Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum ("The Life of the Caesars", or "The Twelve Caesars")

T

 * You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
 * Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Theseus, or Living the Paleo Life, p.39.

 * I have an idée fixe that I am completely obsessed with on the business side — which is that if you are starting a company, if you are the founder entrepreneur starting a company, you always want to aim for monopoly. ... And you want to always avoid competition. ... Hence competition is for losers. ... What makes a business valuable? ... A business creates X dollars of value and captures Y% of X. X and Y are independent variables.
 * Peter Thiel (quote at 0:24 of 50:27 in video)

 * The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.
 * Popularized by Lily Tomlin in the 1970s

W

 * Our species will not survive another 100 years if we don’t move from a competitive to a cooperative mode of existence. “Me first” is an obsolete, unsustainable perspective.
 * Marianne Williamson,Twitter (8 Jan 2020)

 * Oliver E. Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.
 * The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009: Press Release 12 October 2009 on nobelprize.org

 * There can be only one.
 * Tagline to Highlander, written by Gregory Widen, Peter Bellwood, and Larry Ferguson.

Y

 * Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbors’ eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone, Be secret and exult, Because of all things known That is most difficult.
 * W. B. Yeats, “To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing”

Z

 * Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.
 * Luigi Zingales, "Capitalism After the Crisis", National Affairs, issue 1 (Fall 2009), retrieved on 2012-10-17

 * It is better to buy than compete.
 * Mark Zuckerberg 'It's better to buy than compete': The FTC is using Mark Zuckerberg's own words against him" (2008)

title: Competition


text:
Creativity

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed.

Quotes

 * creativity is not the monopoly of the Shakespeares and Einsteins of this world. There is a science of intelligent living, an art of being fully human, in which we all can and ought to be creative.
 * Laura Archera Huxley "Your Imagination is Yours" in You Are Not The Target (1963)

 * My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
 * Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov’s Advice for Being Creative, 1959 (first published October 20, 2014).

 * “It’s too easy to get dispirited in this cruel and hazardous world,” he said, looking at you trustfully. “Yet, we must carry on with our lives, and, more than that, we must find the strength to create. As I remind my patients, bitterness, depression, even shattering despair are transfiguring powers that potentially accompany and corrupt every creative endeavour, because creativity is, as the mythologists insist, an intrusion into the inviolable realm of deity—of abstraction—where we with our spastic actuality can never fully go. How dare we grotesque notochords create anything in this frigid and entropic universe? It takes a lot of arrogance, don’t you think? One has to give everything to create anything.”
 * A. A. Attanasio, The Dark One (originally published in 1994 in Bryan Cholfin (ed.) Crank! #4) and reprinted in Mike Ashley (ed.), The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy (p. 535)

 * Those who have read the Russian novelists Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn know how effective the debilitation can be which treats free actions as clinical abnormalities . … The possibility that such acts are the intentional projects of conscious men who are at once both demanding and expressing freedom is beyond the pale of conception. Thus are men robbed not only of their freedom but also of their dignity as creative human beings.
 * Benjamin R. Barber, Superman and Common Men (New York: 1971), p. 68

 * Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.
 * Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2012)

 * This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul’s creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being.
 * Martin Buber, I and Thou, W. Kaufmann, trans. (1970), p. 60

 * What is underlying Berdyaev's thinking is the fact that the creative impulse must be generated from a dissatisfaction with this world. The creative impulse wishes in its original outburst to see an end to this world; it is the beginning of a different world. In short, creativity is eschatological.
 * There are two views which present themselves before the creative act. "The first is the end of this world and the beginning of a new; and the second is the process of strengthening and perfecting this world. They are respectively the outlook of revolutionary eschatology and that of evolutionary construction." The former is the way of transcendence, and the latter is the way of objectification. "By way of objectification the creative act is adjusted to the circumstance of this world and does not reach its final state, it is cut off short. By the way of transcendence the creative act breaks through to noumenal reality and sets its bearing upon the final transformation of the world." The way of objectification, however, so occupies our thoughts, cooling down the creative energy, that man loses sight of the way of transcendence; hence little attention is given to the eschatological side of creative activity.
 * Carnegie Samuel Calian, The Significance of Eschatology in the Thoughts of Nicolas Berdyaev (1965), p. 66

 * In the best of cases, the philosopher is not simply one who ascends from the cave and perceives the sun. Rather, he is one who out of the depths of his own creativity becomes a new sun for mankind.
 * Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism, p. 29

 * I can find Greece and Palestine and Italy and England and the Islands, the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, in my own mind.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, April 1, 1839, Volume 5, p. 184

 * As the world of creativeness finds itself at the outset placed in the midst of opposition and bound at the same time to proceed on its own course, then it becomes clear that this new world when it becomes a whole and governs all cannot remain permanently within the realm of such stubborn opposites: it must, without giving up its independence, yet return to the world which it had left behind and must attempt to penetrate into it; it must do this most of all on account of the fact that its own development is at stake, for only by some such understanding with things outside itself only by means of a struggle with its oppositions can the life of creativeness in man find its way from the great outlines of its ideal-plan to a full and essential development.
 * Rudolf Eucken, Knowledge and Life 1907, 1913 p. 169-170

 * Enjoyment of the work consists in participation in the creative state of the artist.
 * Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, D. F. Krell, trans. (New York: 1991), p. 117

 * Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.
 * Herman Hesse, Hermine in Steppenwolf (1927), B. Creighton, trans., (New York: 1990), p. 151

 * Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
 * Martin Luther King, Jr., Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources, 1998, p. 107.

 * None of you knows what creativity means. To paint a picture, to write a poem? No! To recast one’s whole age, to impose upon it the stamp of one’s will, to fill it with beauty, to overwhelm it, to overpower it with one’s spirit.
 * Christian Morgenstern, cited in Zarathustra’s Children (2000), p. 178

 * … the republic of creative minds: each giant calling to his brother through the desolate intervals of time. And undisturbed by the wanton noises of the dwarfs that creep past beneath them, their high spirit-converse continues.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Marianne Cowan trans., p. 32

 * A creative life is an energetic life, and this is only possible in one or the other of these two situations: either being the one who rules, or finding oneself placed in a world which is ruled by someone in whom we recognize full right to such a function: either I rule or I obey. By obedience I do not mean mere submission—this is degradation—but on the contrary, respect for the ruler and acceptance of his leadership, solidarity with him, and enthusiastic enrollment under his banner.
 * José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, p. 144

 * Broken symmetry is imperfection, but rich in creativity. The universe is created out of broken symmetry.
 * Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspiration (2010) p. 14

 * Relaxed, playful and harmonious moments are the birth place of creativity.
 * Amit Ray, Meditation: Insights and Inspiration (2010) p. 58

 * Creativity is a life-affirming activity. Lack of response to creativity and being condemned to write for the desk drawer is a stifling, destructive experience.
 * Chava Rosenfarb "A Yiddish Writer Reflects on Translation" (2005) in "Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays" (2019) translated from the Yiddish with Goldie Morgentaler

 * I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.
 * Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, ed. David Leopold (Cambridge: 1995), p. 7

 * I do not presuppose myself, because I am every moment just positing or creating myself, and am I only by being not presupposed but posited, and ... only in the moment when I posit myself; that is, I am creator and creature in one.
 * Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own (1844), S. Byington, trans. (Cambridge: 1995), p. 135

 * He awakens us to the seriousness of living deeply, working steadily, feeling joy in our labor and self-expression, and being patient—the four cornerstones of a creative life. “Almost everything serious is difficult, and everything is serious.”
 * Alexandra Stoddard in Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen (eds.) The Book That Changed My Life (2006), ISBN 1-592-40210-0, p. 166

 * The essence of real creativity is a certain playfulness, a flitting from idea to idea without getting bogged down by fixated demands. Of course, you don't always get what you thought you were asking for.
 * Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky (1999), ISBN 0-812-53635-5, p. 252

 * In men of genius, sterile years precede productive years, these again to be followed by sterility, the barren periods being marked by psychological self-depreciation, by the feeling that they are less than other men; times in which the remembrance of the creative periods is a torment, and when they envy those who go about undisturbed by such penalties. Just as his moments of ecstasy are more poignant, so are the periods of depression of a man of genius more intense than those of other men.
 * Otto Weininger, Sex and Character (1906), p. 107

 * Independence in creatively helps maintain the enthusiasm, self-confidence, and impulsiveness that the creative act requires.''
 * Filippos Fragkogiannis, as quoted in The Brand Identity the-brandidentity.com (September 30, 2022)

 * In “The Creative Mind” I set out to show that there exists a single creative activity, which is displayed alike in the arts and in the sciences. It is wrong to think of science as a mechanical record of facts, and it is wrong to think of the arts as remote and private fancies. What makes each human, what makes them universal, is the stamp of the creative mind.
 * Jacob Bronowski, Science and Human Values (2011)

 * Next to art, or even equal to it, science – that is, producing and testing theories about the world, about reality – seems to me to be the greatest creative enterprise of which men are capable.
 * Karl Popper, The World of Parmenides (2001)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Creativity


text:
Conviction

Conviction is a word which refers to firmly held belief; in common legal terms, a conviction is the result when a court of law renders a verdict which finds a defendant guilty of a crime.

Quotes

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

 * To remember that once we were near the salvation of Christ, so near that our right hand might have touched and taken it, and after all that hand was withheld; this is a memory which will enhance remorse forever.
 * William Adams, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 165.

 * We do not desire that the unanimity of a jury should be the result of anything but the unanimity of conviction. It is true that a single juryman, or two or three constituting a small minority, may, if their own convictions are not strong and deeply rooted, think themselves justified in giving way to the majority. If is very true, if jurymen have only doubts or weak convictions, they may yield to the stronger and more determined view of their fellows; but I hold it to be of the essence of a juryman's duty, if he has a firm and deeply rooted conviction, either in the affirmative or the negative of the issue he has to try, not to give up that conviction, although the majority may be against him, from any desire to purchase his freedom from confinement or constraint, or the various other inconveniences to which jurors are subject.
 * Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet, Winsor v. The Queen (1866), L. R. 1 Q. B. Ca. 305.

 * It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.
 * George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)

 * No man ever truly believed, who was not first made sensible of unbelief. True conviction of sin — how difficult it is, when its appearances and modes of life are so fair, when it twines itself so cunningly about, or creeps so insidiously into, our amiable qualities, and sets off its internal disorders by so many outward charms and attractions.
 * Horace Bushnell, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 164.

 * In immediate feeling, one human being never understands the other. As soon as something happens to him personally, he understands everything differently. When he himself is suffering, he does not understand another’s suffering, and when he himself is happy he still does not understand it. Immediate feeling selfishly understands everything in relation to itself and therefore is in the disunion of double-mindedness with all others, because there can be unity only in the soundly understood equality of sincerity, and in selfish shortsightedness his conviction is continually being changed, or it is chance that it is not changed, since the reason for this is that by chance his life is not touched by any change. But such firmness of conviction is a delusion on the part of the pampered, because a conviction is not firm when everything forces it upon one, as it were, and makes it firm, but its firmness manifests itself in the ups and downs of everything. Rarely, indeed, does a person’s life avoid all changes, and in the changes the conviction of immediate feeling is a delusion, the momentary impression blown up into a view of life as a whole.
 * Søren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, 1847 p. 71-72.

 * Ninety-five per cent of modern people have no ideas or convictions of their own. Five per cent have views and convictions but again ninety-five per cent of these do not dare to stand up for them. There are five per cent of five per cent who have courage and convictions. These make history for good or evil.
 * Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Menace of the Herd (1943), p. 210

 * I do not believe in violent changes, nor do I expect them. Things in possession have a very firm grip. One of the strongest cements of society is the conviction of mankind that the state of things into which they are born is a part of the order of the universe, as natural, let us say, as that the sun should go round the earth. It is a conviction that they will not surrender except on compulsion, and a wise society should look to it that this compulsion be not put upon them. For the individual man there is no radical cure, outside of human nature itself, for the evils to which human nature is heir.
 * James Russell Lowell, On Democracy (6 October 1884)

 * Es ist nicht der Kampf der Meinungen, welcher die Geschichte so gewaltthätig gemacht hat, sondern der Kampf des Glaubens an die Meinungen, das heisst der Ueberzeugungen.
 * Translation: It is not the struggle of opinions that has made history so violent, but rather the struggle of belief in opinions, that is, the struggle of convictions.
 * Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All Too Human), Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / excerpt from aphorism 630, translated by Helen Zimmern (1878).

 * Whether anybody comes to convince me or not a part of my life does always ache arresting my chest.
 * Suman Pokhrel, in ‘While Parting’

 * It is no certain evidence, that because the conscience feels the weight of sin, the heart is humbled on account of it; that because the conscience approves of the rectitude of the Divine justice, the heart bows to the Divine sovereignty. The most powerful conviction of sin, therefore, is not conclusive evidence of Christian character.
 * Gardiner Spring, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 165.

 * The most human thing about anyone is a thing he learns and … and earns. It’s a thing he can’t have when he’s very young; if he gets it at all, he gets it after a long search and a deep conviction. After that it’s truly part of him as long as he lives.
 * Theodore Sturgeon, ''More Than Human, Chapter 3, p. 184 (1953)

 * The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
 * William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1921).

 * Conviction, it turns out, is a luxury of those standing on the sidelines.
 * A Beautiful Mind (film)

title: Conviction


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