Imagination

Joseph Addison
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

John Dewey
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of the imagination.
- The Quest For Certainty

The Buddha
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we create the world. ~ The Dammapada

Luis Bunuel (1900-1983) Mexican film director
Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

Albert Einstein
The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.

Brian Eno
What is possible in art becomes thinkable in life.

Lea Gass PhD
We learn to work creatively by confronting real problems that matter to us personally. This a profound truth expressed throughout the vast literature on creativity. We can help in many ways, but we cannot supply the imagination that humans are born with (but that their families and teachers traditionally suppress). (creativityatwork.com)

Ralph Gerard
Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.

Napoleon
Imagination rules the world.

Linda Naiman (on Improv in business)

Improvisation frees us from being perfect, being in control, thinking ahead, and second guessing. It can feel like jumping into the abyss at first, but once you jump, fear turns into excitement, and your imagination kicks in. (Fast Company Magazine Oct 2005)

Linda Naiman

Daydreams are fertile ground for the imagination to soar. As you sit absorbed in a problem, notice when you get lost in a day dream. What were you just thinking of? Your unconscious is a rich source of images, ideas and experiences that lead to new connections, and fresh thinking.
(creativityatwork.com)

Linda Naiman

While daydreaming, rational thought goes out the window, so new perspectives can find their way in.
(Dynamic Graphics Magazine Dec/Jan 03)

Linda Naiman

Quotes from "Creativity and the Meaning of Work" Perspectives on Business and Global Change, published by the World Business Academy and Berrett-Koehler. March, 1998.

"We were punished for day-dreaming in school. We were not taught to develop our creative imagination; we were taught to suppress it. It takes courage and perseverance to let go of control and trust our intuition."

"Developing our imagination, the language of the soul, allows Spirit to work through us as we answer our calling."

"Our intuition and imagination lead us to fresh thinking with which we can creatively manage change."

Ruth Ozeki
(author, My Year of Meats)

Sometimes you have to make things up, to tell truths that alter outcomes. Without the power of the imagination we lack the power the power to alter outcomes, so if we can't imagine better outcomes in a better world, we cannot act to acheive these.

Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, felt that the pioneer scientist must have " a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination."

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