Daniel Dennett Quotes

The best way to investigate the elusive phenomenon called the creative process may well be to target all the misconceptions, to explain what the creative process is not.

My idea of artistry has always been 'try everything until you find out what works.'

I don't think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you're willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn't work. If you're going to invent, it means you're going to experiment, and if you're going to experiment, you're going to fail, and if you're going to fail, you have to think long term.

The skill of a good creative leader is being comfortable with blowing up an idea and knowing it will get better.

Don't be afraid to stumble. Any inventor will tell you that you don't follow a plan far before you strike a snag. If, out of 100 ideas you get one that works, it's enough.

You try a lot of things and you don't know what the hell you're doing. If you're actually inventing something you shouldn't know what you're doing.

Invention is arrived at by intelligent stumbling.

None of us understand what we're doing, but we do beautiful things anyway.

Invention depends altogether upon execution or organization; as that is right or wrong so is the invention perfect or imperfect.

I would rather have ideas and some difficulties of technique than a perfect technique and no ideas.

Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off... All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.

The essence of creativity is figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think.

All great discoveries...are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.

The answer to the question "where do good ideas come from" is always the same, the come from bad ideas. If you come up with 20 bad ideas you get one good one.

Creating is no problem - problem solving is not creating.

Never give up on an idea simply because it is bad and doesn't work.

Creating a piece of software is always complicated because you're doing something new. If you just wanted something that had been done before you'd just use that old piece of software. So there are no repetitive tasks.

There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.

Solve problems, make art, think deeply.

I think the whole thing that Jamie [Hyneman] and I have in working together is that we are constantly simplifying each other's designs, and we both appreciate that the quickest and the dirtiest solution is usually the most elegant, the least expensive, and the fastest.

Perhaps creativity is fumbling that dance step, or driving the chisel the wrong way into the stone.

Many of us have created lives that give very little support for experimentation. We believe that answers already exist out there, independent of us. What if we invested more time and attention to our own experimentation? We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.

The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.

Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.