Quotations

Above and Beyond

A weekly exploration of creativity – or just something *out there*

“Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.” – David Robinson

I have a folder on my computer where I collect quotes that I find on blogs, web sites, articles etc. I’ve been thinking for a few days about exploring quotations as a source of… not sure really…creativity? insight? Then I found this on David Gurteen’s site today. The emphasis is mine.

Quotations are extremely effective at capturing and concisely communicating thoughts and ideas. They can be inspirational but more importantly quotations can help us reveal and assess the assumptions, values and beliefs that underlie the ways in which we perceive the world.

I have to admit that many quotations are unremarkable – especially many on Twitter. Many are a bit too sugary for my taste. But a good quote stops me in my tracks, like this one.

And the reason it stops me in my tracks is usually because it touches some innate truth, it reveals something of me.  A good quote captures the essence, it summarises what the rest of us struggle to say, or say with way too many words.

Here’s some of my favourite quotes:

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb.

“Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.” – Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” – Millard Fuller

“Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“Knowledge is knowing you are on a one-way street. Wisdom is looking both ways anyway.” – Unknown.

Our favourite quotes – the ones that resonate – are a window into who we are and what we believe.