Creativity & Conflict Quotes

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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. --Will Durant ______________________________________________________________

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you 'block' it, it will never exist throughout any medium and be lost. The world will not have it!” -- Martha Graham

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In the spirit of Einstein's declaration: "Creativity is contagious, pass it on." Einstein ______________________________________________________________

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

--Toni Morrison ________________________________________________________________

"Leap! And the Net will Appear!" --- Ancient Zen Proverb

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"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. " --Edgar Degas
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"It's not where you live it's what lives in you." Bobby Pollack.

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"We live in extraordinarily frightening and dangerous times. We need innovative solutions to the social, cultural and political issues that face us. We as drama therapists have powerful tools and with these tools, we have the ability to create intimacy, empathy, community and resourcefulness in realms that most people would consider hopeless. I believe, as Jacob Moreno did about Psychodrama, that drama therapy has the ability to transform society itself. We, as healers, are the resistance fighters of our time parachuting behind the lines to fight against violence, hatred, dehumanization and alienation in our society. I encourage you to take action, even in the face of overwhelming odds! Find the courage to create your vision of a better world!" Armand-Volkas- http://www.livingartscenter.org/

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“Theater is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theater can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.” - Augusto Boal.
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"Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." – Henry Van Dyke

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"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." – Robin Williams

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"To create is to celebrate one's connection to the cosmos."

-Burnell Yow!
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"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is." – Erich Fromm
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"Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure." – Jack Lemmon

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"Art is the education of nature... The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul."
-Alfred North Whitehead. ______________________________________________________________
"Humans are more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting."

-Working Identity by Hermina Ibarra
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“The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation; this is the message that art brings. The therapist then would be an artist of the soul, working with sufferers to enable them to find the proper container for their pain, the form in which it would be embodied.” - Stephen K. Levine
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"Expressive art therapy integrates all of the arts in a safe, non-judgmental setting to facilitate personal growth and healing. To use the arts expressively means going into our inner realms to discover feelings and to express them through visual art, movement, sound, writing or drama. This process fosters release, self-understanding, insight and awakens creativity and transpersonal states of consciousness." - Natalie Rogers

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“The arts, as media of the imagination, are disciplines which give form and substance to our capacity to be who we are. Each artistic medium embodies the imagination in a concrete and specific way.” -Stephen K. Levine
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“Expressive therapy is a disclosure of soul’s contagion. It comes upon us diamonically through the agency of imagination, who’s medicines draw from the full spectrum of soul.” - Paulo J. Knill

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"We recognized the role of imagination and ritual that is shared between contemporary psychotherapies and all ancient traditions. It was also evident that the arts are the bridging existential phenomena that unite ritual, imagination and dream-world in a way that no other activity can do." -Paulo Knill (p50 in Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy)

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"By descending down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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" I believe that imagination is the integrating faculty of cognition and creativity. Genius and invention are dependent on it's ability to transform phenomena and establish new relationships." -Shaun McNiff

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"Let's Wake Up the World!" Lesley University, Cambridge,MA.
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"The dramatic mode liberates clients from real-life constraints and from embedded patterns, affording them a means of expanding their behavioral and role repertoire." —Renée Emunah, chapter in Beyond Talk Therapy

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"To play it out is the most natural self-healing measure that childhood affords."

— Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society
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"The arts abound at times of nightfall, death, birth, war, and natural disaster, for they help to encapsulate terror. If psychological trauma is the origin of art, is it any wonder that the creative arts therapies hold so much promise as a reparative force?" —David Johnson, Essays on the Creative Arts Therapies
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"In former times, acting simply meant putting on a disguise. . . Now it’s clear that the wearing of the disguise changes the person. As he takes the disguise off, his face is changed from having worn it. The stage performance informs the life performance and is informed by it."

— Joseph Chaiken, The Presence of the Actor
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"Drama therapy invites us to uncover and integrate dormant aspects of ourselves, stretch our conception of who we are, and experience our intrinsic connection with others." — Renée Emunah, Acting for Real.
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"It's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it, and that is what this conference begins to do. Positive aging is the future we want to create." Harry R. Moody, Director of Academic Affairs, AARP"

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"Meaning is the product of discovering how we are 'thrown' or situated in the world and then, through commitment, living creatively." Gerald Corey
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"We choose our actions, and therefore we can partially create our own destiny." Gerald Corey
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"Becoming Human is a project, and our task is not so much to discover who we are as to create ourselves." Gerald Corey (2010) on Existential Therapy.
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"If, like sheep, we acquiesce in herd morality, we will be nothing but mediocrities. But if we release ourselves by giving free rein to our will to power, we will tap our potentiality for creativity and originality." Nietzsche

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"Guilt is what we "good" people do when we don't feel that we are living up to other people's expectations." Gerald Corey
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"Achievement doesn't come without risk" Jillian Michaels
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"Sometimes, we just need someone to show us something we can't see for ourselves, and then we are changed forever." - Movie Quote
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"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." - E.E. Cummings
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"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone." - Coco Chanel
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"It was silly of us to look for qualities in each other that we never had." - Movie Quote
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"Anger: The body's response that restores the boundary of being violated." - James Finley
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"Feelings of in-authenticity are heightened by a lack of a philosophy that allows failure to be part of life. If you're leading a full life, you're going to fail some every day." - Thomas Moore
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"The authentic self isn't always pretty. It's just real." - Karen Wright
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"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength." - Author Unknown
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"My mother taught me when things get depressingly dirty and old rearrange your furniture. It cleans, and gives you a new look. And most importantly, makes you feel better." Jeff Jimerfield

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"Beauty is the combination of humor, intelligence, and energy." (anonymous)

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"If I had to define life in a word, it would be Life is creation."
-Claude Bernard
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"That which created us designed us to create back."
-Josephine S. May.

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Archived Quotes from your CAC Team!

"Tell me what you plan to do with your one, wild and precious life!" - Mary Oliver

"We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Information simply leaves us feeling incompetent and lost. We don’t need more information. We need to know what it means. We need a story that explains what it means and makes us feel like we fit in there somewhere." Create Your Story! (Annette Simmons, ‘The Story Factor’, 2006).

"If you hear a voice within you say 'You cannot paint; then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." Vincent Van Gogh.

Creating: “You do not have to be good to start, but you have to start to become good!” Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D.

Create your future today: "Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."― Anonymous Submitted by Kathy Tulley.

Creative way to lose weight: Just wanted to share this for those that struggle with weight. A friend at Curves shared this story. She read a newspaper article a few years back. A man bought a house from the 1920's. When he moved in he realized that his dishes were too big for the cupboards. He went and bought smaller plates. By the end of the year he had lost a lot of weight enough to become newsworthy. The moral of this story is to go buy a house from the 1920's. I'm already searching for a motor-home or tent from that era;-)

Creating: "Together we can create the future." (Anonymous)

Creating: "Children are our future! Why is it not instead: We are our present!?" Alan Sharland - A Call to Creators. -

Conflict: "Sometimes being listened to and fully understood is more helpful than therapy." Dr. Sutherland 1976

Creating: "Happiness is learning to live creatively through disappointments." CreativityAndConflict.com

Be Creative: "I studied everything but never topped, But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees” (Bill Gates) Be creative.

Consciousness to Creative:"Conflict is the beginning of consciousness" - M.Esther Harding (Sent in by Alan Sharland)

Creative careers: "Creativity itself as a career is a new way of thinking. It’s about creating a link in things that before had no possibility of being linked."(Unknown)

Intentional Creative: "Our intention creates our reality." -- Wayne Dyer (Sent in by Bill Sheffield)

Live creatively: "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce

Don't point (Conflict) "Remember when you point your finger at someone you have three more pointing back at you." (Anonymous) (Sent in by Alan Sharland.)

Creativity: "Those who hide their creativity are just like those who can't be creative." Bill Sheffield

Attract Creativity "Every creative act draws on the past whether it pretends to or not. It draws on what it knows. There is no such thing, really, as a creative act in a vacuum."Ada Louise Huxtable

The following is more of a poem than a quote but it's worth the read.

You are Creative: "We are all creative and we are all artists whether we are viewing art or making it. We are open systems evolving at the edge of chaos in resonance with each other in our everyday lives.

Our artists are our helpmates, bringing us images, metaphors, and meanings that speak to our depths, and call forth new visions.

We see worlds unimagined and hope at last for this one.

We find understanding and beauty and the bridging of conflict and distance which heralds our deeper self.

We are transformed in turn and we spread the vision through our own unique expressions be they in conversation or painting. Our museums serve as nerve centers humming with life and concentrating the streams of this evolving mind while mixing in the bright new colors of the viewer, OF YOU." R. Richards

"Everyday creativity and New Views of Human Nature. Psychological, Social and Spiritual Perspectives. 2007 American Psychological Association.

"This is going to be one heck of a good year; I can feel it in my heart... There's going to be a lot of changes for the good and you will see all nations for the first time UNITE as one with no Boundaries. Everyone pulling together. Security heightened but love will prevail all this and still able to function as one Nation ... "Earth" We are citizens of Earth full of love and tolerance and knowledge sharing. You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created. Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual." Michael Bonnici

"I am feeling grateful right now. Thankful for the new friends in my life, and my direction in life! Creative process is from above and I'm glad." Xavier Smith

"It can be argued that throughout human history, our most valued ability has been intelligence - the capacity to learn and to use existing knowledge. In the new millennium, this will no longer be so. Creativity, the ability to produce new knowledge, will become our most cherished trait."(Dacey & Lennon 1998)

"Everyday creativity is not new but it is sometimes overlooked." R. Richards

What (the creator) feels... is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities." Rollo May

"If I had to define life in a word, it would be Life is a creation." Claude Bernard

"The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything." Abraham Maslow

“Humor is, by nature, creative and offers the opportunity to discuss real-life problems in a way that does not threaten the client.” Pritzker

"Everyday creativity is meaningful and original to the creator" R. Richards.

"We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents." Eric Hoffer

“When you’re out on your own, you’re making stuff up. Nothing happens unless you create it.” Chellie Campbell

“Being out on your own is the ultimate act of creativity” Paul and Sarah Edwards. –Making it On Your Own (1991) G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.

“I view what I do as practice. I’m always looking for a way to make it better. If I send out a mailing and it doesn’t get a response, it’s not a failure; it’s a challenge to my creativity.” Gene Call-private-practice consultant.

Please submit your favorite Creativity or Conflict Quote.