Richard Rohr Quotes

She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.

To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.

The secret of breaking rules in a way that works is understanding what the rules are in the first place.

You have to learn the rules to be able to know how to break them.

I come from the place of thinking, 'Whatever works for people' - and if you haven't been exposed to anything else, you really don't know better.

I'm always open to the possibility that somebody's got a better idea than I have. It happens with some frequency.

Gotta know the rules to break the rules.

Standardization leads to rigidity, and rigidity causes things to break.

Precedents are treated by powerful minds as fetters with which to bind down the weak, as reasons with which to mistify the moderately informed, and as reeds which they themselves fearlessly break through whenever new combinations and difficult emergencies demand their highest efforts.

Most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

I never understood what rules I was supposed to learn, and what rules I was supposed to break

Learn all the rules... then break them.

Continually challenge and be willing to amend your best loved ideas.

You know I'm finished with the old chess because it's all just a lot of book and memorization you know.

It is curious to be treated by the old-fashioned people as a criminal because my thoughts and ways are beyond them.

I also have learned as an actor, this ties in the principles of improv, sometimes someone gives a piece of instruction and my first reaction is "I don't want to do that." I've always learned that every time I just say yes and go for it something happens. Whether it's what the intent of the direction was or not or something new happens. It's just remaining open to other people's ideas.

Any year that you don't destroy one of your best-loved ideas is probably a wasted year

My thing from the beginning is to have it be useful, and be able to help others. It's about being efficient and getting there as fast as you can. If people want to do it more artistically or in a freestyle way, I have absolutely no problem with it — that's the way it's going to evolve. It's not my style, but if it's other people's [style], that's perfect.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

The fear of being different prevents most people from seeking new ways to solve their problems.

I'm really a big believer in working with people. It's challenging for me to come into already integrated brands and find a way where I can put my own flair on it.

Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong. So instead of speaking to highly agreeable audiences, target suggestions to people with a history of originality.

Never, never, never think - that's one lesson you should have in life. Never think that lack of variability is stability.

There is a chalk outline slowly being drawn around common sense and most people can't identify the victim.

Good programmers stay open minded to that even though there is no obvious way to improve what they've done they... they keep looking and they listen to what other people have to say.