Alan Kay Quotes

The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.

The best things that capture your imagination are ones you hadn't thought of before and that aren't talked about in the news all the time.

I feel like science and art are cousins.

Coming up with a good idea, with an insight into the way the world works that is really new and that you really believe in, is a deeply satisfying experience.

Science and art have that in common that everyday things seem to them new and attractive.

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.

Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there.

We re-make nature by the act of discovery, in the poem or in the theorem. And the great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself re-creates them. They are the marks of unity in variety; and in the instant when the mind seizes this for itself, in art or in science, the heart misses a beat.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.

We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.

Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

To be creative means to connect. It's to abolish the gap between the body, the mind and the soul, between science and art, between fiction and nonfiction.

To us, the value of a work lies in its newness: the invention of new forms, or a novel combination of old forms, the discovery of unknown worlds or the exploration of unfamiliar areas in worlds already discovered - revelations, surprises.

It's good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that's better than you'd imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn't be as much fun.

Art makes us human, music makes us human, and I deeply feel that science makes us human.

I write what I don't know. It's way more interesting.

Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science.

It is not enough to know your craft - you have to have feeling. Science is all very well, but for us imagination is worth far more.