More Imagination, Please

“My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk”
― John Keats



“The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.”
― Oscar Wilde





“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”
― Francis Bacon


onaut
tags: creative, darkness, imagination, knowledge, navigation, spirit, survival, survive, way 28 people liked it like

“I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.”
― Albert Einstein, On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms
tags: evolution, imagination, knowledge, science 25 people liked it like

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”
― Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader


“Truth is a matter of the imagination.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness



“I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.”
― J.G. Ballard




“Fairy tales had been her first experience of the magical universe, and more than once she had wondered why people ended up distancing themselves from that world, knowing the immense joy that childhood had brought to their lives.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brida


“When you're feeling lonely
and no one is around
Remember to look inside yourself
and a best friend will be found”
― Stephen Cosgrove, Maynard's Mermaid

“I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.”
― Jeanette Winterson




“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays


Writing is lonely work, and there’s no way around it. —Frank Conroy


 




“The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.”
― André Breton



“The possible's slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.”
― Emily Dickinson



“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.”
― Philip José Farmer





“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. ”
― John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action




“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
― Albert Einstein


“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.”
― Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies


“I think imagination is at the heart of everything we do. Scientific discoveries couldn't have happened without imagination. Art, music, and literature couldn't exist without imagination. And so anything that strengthens imagination, and reading certainly does that, can help us for the rest of our lives.”
― Lloyd Alexander




“When walking alone in a jungle of true darkness,
there are three things that can show you the way:
instinct to survive, the knowledge of navigation,
creative imagination. Without them, you are lost.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut



“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
― Mahatma Gandhi



“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”
― Ernesto Guevara



“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
― Voltaire, Zadig


“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
― Thomas Jefferson





“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”
― Wendell Berry



“Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird




“A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”
― Raymond Chandler, Pearls are a Nuisance


“Consciousness, unprovable by scientific standards, is forever, then, the impossible phantom in the predictable biologic machine, and your every thought a genuine supernatural event. Your every thought is a ghost, dancing.”
― Alan Moore, Promethea, Vol. 5



“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”
― J.K. Rowling


“Yes, and imagine a world where there were no hypothetical situations.”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels


“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine - it is stranger than we can imagine.”
― Arthur Stanley Eddington


“Living too much in one's head can be dangerous.”
― Anna Godbersen, Rumors


“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”
― W. Clement Stone


“When we are no longer children we are already dead”
― Constantin Brancusi


“I believe in the goodness of imagination.”
― Sue Monk Kidd


“The imagination is the goal of history. I see culture as an effort to literally realize our collective dreams.”
― Terence McKenna



“Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time.”
― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird



“The imaginary is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between books. It is the phenomena of the library.”
― Michel Foucault


“When you visualized a man or a woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity . . . that was a quality God's image carried with it . . . when you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory




“All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!”
― Saul Bellow, Henderson, The Rain King


“Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams - day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain-machinery whizzing - are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz

“Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.”
― Jonathan Franzen


“Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to live.”
― Adele Brookman



“An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice... or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today. ”
― Jim Davis



“You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.”
― Yoko Ono



“your brain is wider than the sky”
― Emily Dickinson




“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
tags: bravery, god, goodness, humanity, justice, kindness, peace, suffering