Noteworthy Quotes

Robert Stenberg - Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and professor of psychology at Tufts University

The increasingly massive and far-reaching use of standardized testing is one of the most effective, if unintentional ways we have created for suppressing creativity"
 

John Kao -"Innovation Nation"

Innovation emerges when different bodies of knowledge, perspectives, and disciplines are brought together

Uffe Elbaek - business school leader in Denmark

The social innovations needed by the modern world today will come from a high level of collaboration and cooperating.  They will require new skills and new social mechanisms that include continuous learning, agility, and a willingness to reinvent the nature of competitive advantage in a cooperative, as opposed to a winner -take-all, manner
 

From "Art of Innovation"  -  Tom Kelly

"Fail often to succeed sooner."

Tapping America's Potential - a report recently published by fifteen major U.S. business organizations

If current trends continue, more than 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will be living in Asia by 2010

Patrick Callan, President of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

"The strength of America is in the population that is closest to retirement, while the strength of many countries against whom we compare ourselves is their younger population

Dr. Spencer Johnson, page 65, Who Moved My Cheese?

"When you change what you believe, you change what you do." 

William Gibson, Author, Neuromancer

"The future is already here.  It's just not evenly distributed"

John Kao, Author, Innovation Nation

If innovation is the answer, what is the question?"

John Kao, Author, Innovation Nation

If we are to renew our commitment to being the world's leading innovator, we must teach three foundational values - the will to mastery, the spirit of risk taking, and the embrace of continuous change - supplemented by a crucial fourth value that rejects the idea of global competition as a zero-sum game."

Richard Florida, George Mason University, Author, The Flight of the Creative Class

"If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine."

James Adams, Author, The Care and Feeding of Ideas

"We are more creative if engaged in a task that is inherently challenging and fun rather than in one in which we are motivated by needs for material gain, status, affiliation, defense, etc."
 

James Adams, Author, The Care and Feeding of Ideas

"It is worthwhile to spend some time thinking about habits in more detail, because, to the extent that they inhibit creativity and change, we must become clever at modifying or circumventing them."

James Adams, Author, The Care and Feeding of Ideas

"Creativity implies deviance from past procedure and therefore is at odds with habit."

James Adams, Author, The Care and Feeding of Ideas

"Creativity and change imply deviance, and we are schizophrenic about deviance.  We both applaud it and worry about it.  We both seek it and seek to avoid it."

James Adams, Author, The Care and Feeding of Ideas

"The type of mathematics and science that one sees through secondary school and usually well into college is rote, single-answer material.  Even in calculus, one is asked to learn perfectly mathematics invented by Newton some time ago.  This material is certainly important to scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, but only to develop intellectual processes and learn certain techniques.  Students get little chance to experience the creative aspects of these fields.  They have no idea what is involved in inventing new math (which is what 'pure' mathematicians do), designing, developing, and manufacturing new products and services (which is what engineers spend much of their  time doing and which is as close to an art as to a science.), and making discoveries in science."

Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen, Authors, Fish

"Choose your attitude, play, make their day, and be present."

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel prize winning physician

Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different

Unknown - quoted on page 86 of A Whack on the Side of the Head

"The amount a person uses her imagination is inversely proportional to the amount of punishment they will receive for using it."

Roger von Oech, Author, A Whack on the Side of the Head

"Creativity requires an attitude that allows you to play with and manipulate your knowledge so that it takes on new meanings"

No clue who said this

Expect the unexpected, or you won't find it, because it doesn't leave a trail"

"All new ideas begin in a non-conforming mind that questions some tenet of the conventional wisdom."

-- H. G. Rickover

"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much."

-- Walter Lippman

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

-- Michelangelo

"Never innovate to compete, innovate to change the rules of the game."

-- David O. Adeife

"Wealth flows directly from innovation… not optimization… wealth is not gained by perfecting the known."

-- Kevin Kelly

"Never underestimate the value of an idea. Every positive idea has within its potential for success if it is managed properly."

-- Robert H. Schuller

"The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it."

-- Dee Hock

"Innovation is the fuel for growth. When a company runs out of innovation, it runs out of growth."

-- Gary Hamel and Gary Getz, in ‘Funding Growth in an Age of Austerity’

“Creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate profits.”

-- Edward de Bono