This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
In the creative vision of God the individual is present as a whole in his essential being and inner teleos and at the same time in the infinity of the special moments of his life process. Of course this is said symbolically, since we are unable to have a perception of or even an imagination of that which belongs to the divine life. The mystery of being beyond essence and existence is hidden in the mystery of the creativity of the divine life.
Creativity | Existence | God | Imagination | Individual | Life | Life | Mystery | Perception | Present | Time | Vision | God |
In this country we encourage "creativity" among the mediocre, but real bursting creativity appalls us. We put it down as undisciplined, as somehow "too much."
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
Real creativity will die out. Instead, we shall get a multitude of mediocre pseudo-thinkers and vulgar groups and organizations. Our belief systems will turn into a strange chaotic stew of science, philosophy, and magical beliefs. “Quantitative colossalism will substitute for qualitative refinement.” What is biggest will be regarded as best. Instead of classics, we shall have best-sellers. Instead of genius, technique. Instead of real thought, Information. Instead of inner value, glittering externality. Instead of sages, smart alecs. The great cultural values of the past will be degraded; “Michelangelos and Rembrandts will be decorating soap and razor blades, washing machines and whiskey bottles.”
Belief | Creativity | Machines | Past | Will |
Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller
I am convinced that creativity is a priori to the integrity of the universe and that life is regenerative and conformity meaningless.
Conformity | Creativity | Integrity | Life | Life | Universe |
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Creativity | Knowing |
I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.
Cynicism | Nothing | Promise | Skepticism |
In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.
My main reason for scepticism about the Huxley/Sagan theory is that the human brain is demonstrably eager to see faces in random patterns, as we know from scientific evidence, on top of the numerous legends about faces of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Mother Teresa, being seen on slices of toast, or pizzas, or patches of damp on a wall. This eagerness is enhanced if the pattern departs from randomness in the specific direction of being symmetrical.
Legends | Mother | Reason | Scepticism |
Wielding his sword of reason in one hand and shield of acerbic scepticism in the other, Professor Richard Dawkins rides out against the forces of faith, superstition and New Age nonsense. It's hardly a fair fight, Dawkins easily destroys the arguments of astrologers, dowsers and the tricks behind the trade of mediumship. His manner may be off-putting but Dawkins' message is clear
Age | Reason | Scepticism | Superstition |
They [say] everybody's creative. Well, everybody is. But any real creativity has to rest on a basis of an acquired technique and an acquired knowledge; you can't be creative in a void, or you just get a mess.
Creativity | Rest |
Roger Schutz, aka Frère Roger, Brother Roger of Taize, baptised Roger Louis Schütz-Marsauche
I say to myself, go on seeking, be glad for being sensitive, be glad you're able to go beyond the resistance inside you. It is our resistance to what we experience that makes creativity possible. So don't get rid of resistance like that by going around it or trying to eliminate it. Our own limitations put up strong resistance, but it's because of that that we are creators.
Creativity | Experience |
Leaders have the courage to face inevitable conflict openly and head on. Whenever strong willed people interact on a frequent basis, there will be occasional disagreements and conflict. The effective leader recognizes this as a fact of life and does not shy away from conflict because of the tension and stress involved.
Adaptability | Authority | Capacity | Creativity |
The absence of authority enables one to deviate from the norms of authoritative decision-making.
Challenge | Conversation | Creativity | Ideas | People |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
I’m talking about science on the leading edge, where it’s not clear which way things are going be cause we don’t know, and I’m dealing with areas which we don’t know about.
Art | Creativity | Mystery | Art |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
The cumulative nature of the evolutionary process, the fact that memory is preserved, means that life grows not just through a random proliferation of new forms, but there's a kind of cumulative quality...
Creativity | Earth | History |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
Machines are designed not to be random. When you call up a word processing program on your computer, you don't want it to be different every time you call it up. You want it to stay the same.
Belief | Discovery | Need | Skepticism | Discovery |
Rupert Sheldrake, fully Alfred Rupert Sheldrake
Unfortunately, at present, practically no one under thirty goes to workshops. It's a system of education entirely for the middle aged.
Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech
Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something.... If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously.
The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.
Music represented symbolically is regarded as more acceptable than music which happens in real time as sound. We have fallen under the sway of a strange inversion in which symbols are regarded as more real than the realities they represent. Music (or art, literature, science, technology) is often treated as a collection of works arranged in a historical timeline. The scores are regarded as having not only an independent existence, but a higher existence than a performance.
Creativity | Giving | Inevitable | Perseverance | Play | Struggle | Worth |