Carl Sandburg Quotes

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.

Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been.

Solitude is a breeding ground for idiosyncrasy, and I relish that about it, the way it liberates whim.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

Is it not in the most absolute simplicity that real genius plies its pinions the most wonderfully?

People said, ‘You must be mad, or on drugs,’ which I found a bit disappointing. What about imagination? It reflects our time that people sooner assume you’re on drugs or mad, rather than free.

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.

If you want to be creative, go where your questions lead you.

One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.

Creativity is a continual surprise.

Imagination is something you do alone.

I knew naturally as a child not to forfeit my creativity to a world that's all laid out for me. I'll look at everything around me and vow to keep in mind that alla this is just someone's idea. It could have just as well been mine.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius, the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars.

Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences

Creativity is very self-indulgent.

Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.

Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.

I mean, what do you think creativity is? Nothing but self-indulgence. And the more self-indulgent it is, the more interesting it becomes. So I think that part of creativity is also falling in love with your own narcissism: accepting it, using it as an asset.