Time alone stimulates the creative mind
- … practically all creative people, and certainly most geniuses, have preferred to be alone for long periods, especially when producing their best work. Raj Persaud, ‘One Hundred Tears of Solitude’
- Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea. Lou Dorfsman
- I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein
- In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone. Rollo May
- It is well to be alone. It fertilizes the creative impulse. Max Nordau
- When you’re socially awkward, you’re isolated more than usual, and when you’re isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages. Criss Jami
- To be creative you must create a space for yourself where you can be undisturbed… separate from everyday concerns. John Cleese
- The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. Aldous Huxley
- The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. Albert Einstein
- Incubation, Creativity, Creative thinking, Problem solving, Solitude, Ideas, Innovation
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Time alone stimulates the imagination
- My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people. Patricia Highsmith
- The main reason for the solitude to work is because people won’t shut up when they’re around, which makes it hard to hear yourself imagine. Gail Caduff-Nash
- Imagination
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Time alone allows ideas to flow
- When I am ….. completely myself, entirely alone… or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born. Nikola Tesla
- Ideas
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Time alone allows us to figure things out
- Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers. Ester Bucholz
- Understanding
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Proximity to the crowd kills creativity
- Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night. Abraham Joshua Heschel
- Conformity
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Solitude stimulates inspiration
- I learned that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. Brenda Ueland
- One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Solitude, Inspiration
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Solitude aids understanding
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Solitude allows talent to be nurtured
- A career is born in public – talent in privacy. Marilyn Monroe
- Talent is nurtured in solitude … A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude. Johann Wolfgang Von Göethe
- Talent, Skill
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Solitude increases our powers of perception and awareness
- Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world. Hans Margolius
- Perception, Awareness
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Solitude aids spiritual awakening
- You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. Franz Kafka
- Awakening, Spirituality
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Solitude provides freedom from distraction
- And to get the work done that I must do, one has to work in isolation and not be readily disturbed… I don’t have daily newspapers, and I like to feel when I get up in the morning my attention is fixed on the work I am going to do. Reg Butler
- Focus
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Originality, uniqueness and individuality thrive on solitude
- Isolation can lead to uniqueness, but uniqueness also walks the halls of mental institutions. Winston Seeney
- It is in solitude that the works of hand, heart and mind are always conceived, and in solitude that individuality must be affirmed. Robert Lindner
- Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born. Nikola Tesla
- Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous — to poetry. Thomas Mann
- Originality, Uniqueness
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Great and creative works require solitude
- A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all. Oscar Wilde
- Every kind of creative work demands solitude, and being alone, constructively alone, is a prerequisite for every phase of the creative process. Barbara Powell
- The urge, ability and vision to create is a solo endeavor. Linda Archinal
- History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion. Thomas Carlyle
- Achievement, Leaving a legacy
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Writing thrives on solitude
- Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. Barbara Kingsolver
- On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching. Jeffrey Eugenides
- Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. Franz Kafka
- Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. Jessamyn West
- What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy. Salman Rushdie
- Writing
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Art and artists thrive on solitude …
- The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.James Baldwin
- Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all. Oscar Wilde
- Art starts alone – and convinces society later. Douglas Davis
- Artists with serious aspirations need to be left alone to follow the course of their own imagination. Robert Genn
- I realized… that the artist is always alone. Early in life I had thought I needed other people to confirm or approve what I was doing…Beverly Pepper
- Art, Creative expression
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… as great artists attest
- My work is always better when I am alone and follow my own impressions. Claude Monet
- Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone. Vincent van Gogh
- Because I cannot work except in solitude, it is necessary that I live my work and that is impossible except in solitude. Pablo Picasso
- Without great solitude no serious work is possible. Pablo Picasso
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Poetry thrives on solitude
- A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley
- And here in my isolation I can grow stronger. Poetry seems to come of itself, without effort, and I need only let myself dream a little while painting to suggest it. Paul Gauguin
- Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous — to poetry. Thomas Mann
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Solitude can be both a blessing and a curse
- The artist is a strange being. I think it’s safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.Peter Schjeldahl
- Because she favours solitude and indwelling, an artist can live a significantly more claustrophobic life that she had ever intended. Eric Maisel
- Isolation can lead to uniqueness, but uniqueness also walks the halls of mental institutions.Winston Seeney
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Take conscious breaks from the everyday world
- Spend less time immersed in popular culture and take conscious breaks from the everyday world to practice creative thinking. Charles Cave
- Idleness, Rest and renewal, Balance
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