Quotessence
Home / Topics / Imagination Quotes

Imagination Quotes

Browse 8070 quotes about Imagination.

Related topics

WorldIfsThinkingMy ImaginationPeopleMenMindWayKnowsRealityArtHumansImagineWritingIdeasUseRealDreamCreativityChildrenGivingWantNeedsMayBookKindMemoriesWellsShouldBelieveStoriesHeartFactsCreativeMeanLittlesDoeFeelsPersonsTryingCharacterFormImportantInspirationalEyeFirstsLooksReasonFantasyArtistMadeLifeFeelingsVisionI CanMomentsDifferentLongEnoughScienceReadingSeemsMightSelfAblePastPlayStillsFictionHuman ImaginationMatterHas BeensLiteratureSometimesSoulWholeLimitsRunningDesireEndsHappensActorsPossibilityBodyYearsForceLyingOrderReaderKidsBeautifulAbilityBrainFilmHelpingPoetTurnsLife IsSpiritTwomore

Imagination Quotes

“As the idea imparted by the term Cataclysm, Catastrophe, or Revolution, is extremely vague, and may comprehend any thing you choose to imagine, it answers for the time very well as an explanation; that is, it stops further inquiry. But it also has had the disadvantage of effectually stopping the advance of science, by involving it in obscurity and confusion.”

WellsMayIdeasScienceTermImaginationAnswersImagineRevolutionConfusionExplanationYou ChooseVagueCatastropheStoppingInquiryObscurityDisadvantagesInvolving
Author:George Julius Poulett Scrope
Create image

“It is generally recognized that creativity requires leisure, an absence of rush, time for the mind and imagination to float and wander and roam, time for the individual to descend into the depths of his or her psyche, to be available to barely audible signals rustling for attention. Long periods of time may pass in which nothing seems to be happening. But we know that kind of space must be created if the mind is to leap out of its accustomed ruts, to part from the mechanical, the known, the familiar, the standard, and generate a leap into the new.”

IfsKnowsMindKindMayLongSeemsIndividualImaginationSpaceAttentionKnownCreativityPeriodsStandardsHappeningsDepthAvailableAbsenceFamiliarWanderLeapLeisureSignalsAccustomedFloatsLong Periods Of TimeRuts
Book:The Psychology of Romantic Love: Romantic Love in an Anti-Romantic Age
Create image

“It is the wicked deception of love that it begins by making us dwell not upon a woman in the outside world but upon a doll inside our head, the only woman who is always available in fact, the only one we shall ever possess, whom the arbitrary nature of memory, almost as absolute as that of the imagination, may have made as different from the real woman as the real Balbec had been from the Balbec I imagined- a dummy creation that little by little, to our own detriment, we shall force the real woman to resemble.”

WorldMayLittlesMadeDifferentRealFactsForceImaginationMemoriesCreationAbsolutesAvailableDeceptionWickedArbitraryDollsOutside WorldDummyReal Women
Book:The Guermantes Way
Create image

“To reach only for that which pleasantly enchants you is the least of imagination, if even imagination at all, by the obvious reality of remaining within your means. The greater of imagination is parallel to risk. It extends beyond your comfort zone or haven, or sense of beauty, or what you personally believe suits you in exploration of what may not.”

IfsBelieveMayMeanRealityImaginationGreaterRiskHavensComfortObviousSuitsZoneExplorationComfort ZoneParallelsRisk ItSuits You
Book:Killosophy
Create image

“Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.”

MenHeartMayCountryHomeEasyDifficultImaginationBlindCuriosityPhilosopherEsteemMiserableImpulseGood ManDespiseSublimeIndulgeTravellerAstronomersVagabonds
Book:The works of Oliver Goldsmith. 2: Enquiry into the present state of polite learning; The citizen of the world
Create image

“Had there been no Renaissance and no Italian influence to bring in the stories of other lands English history would, it may be, have become as important to the English imagination as the Greek Myths to the Greek imagination; and many plays by many poets would have woven it into a single story whose contours, vast as those of Greek myth, would have made living men and women seem like swallows building their nests under the architrave of some Temple of the Giants.”

MenMayMadeImportantPlayStoriesSeemsImaginationInfluenceLandBuildingPoetMen And WomenMythGreekGiantsTemplesItalianNestsRenaissanceWovenEnglish HistoryGreek Myth
Book:The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
Create image

“The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.”

ShouldFirstsMayEyeImaginationExistenceDoubtStudentsTruth IsDegreesFoundationRaisedDefeatPhilosopherFranceEnterpriseRemoveProbabilityEmbarrassmentObjectionsEndeavourIntricatePinnacleRetardSolid FoundationGreat Philosophers
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
Create image

“When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst.”

LifeMayMomentsSeemsLife IsSufferingBlackImaginationOur LivesBearsHorrorLowsLipsCloudsTrialsDesertInstantSubstitutesContrastDreadThirstCurtainsBrightnessTransientHeavinessRespite
Book:Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life
Create image

“Hearing him speak is so fun, reassuring I dare say. You can say all you like about Sihanouk: that he's an atrocious liar, a madman, a fraud, a swashbuckler, an international blot. You may think that, but you cannot deny how in this age in which the political arena seems to generate only dull, obtuse and boring characters with no imagination, he's a kind of miracle.”

ThinkingKindMayCharacterSeemsAgePoliticalSpeakFunImaginationMiracleInternationalDareBoringDenyHearingDullLiarsFraudArenaMadmenReassuring
Author:Oriana Fallaci
Create image

“While the fashion industry may, at least at the top end, be thriving, the notion of fashion itself is becoming more and more meaningless. Any discipline in fashion has long since evaporated; the idea of a single fashionable skirt length, or heel height, is incomprehensible. The definition of the fashionable has become so skimpy that it refers not to the mode of dress of everyday people--the clothes that have sufficiently caught the popular imagination to be worn in a widespread manner--but only to the styles that momentarily excite members of the fashion caravan.”

PeopleMayLongIdeasEndsImaginationFashionStyleIndustryBecomingDisciplineMembersClothesDressesNotionEverydayCaughtDefinitionsHeightLengthMeaninglessHeelsWornFashionableSkirtsBecoming MoreFashion IndustryCaravans
Author:Rebecca Mead
Create image

“Canada may be fast-forwarding, jump starting, into a new pattern, a model of communication linkages, a civilization that is more than a grab for power and dominance, a place that could channel the fires of the global wirings, where political alliances are subject to electrical ebb and flow, and the alchemical cultivations of imagination and perception, of the self, could precail of the ideology of capital.”

MaySelfPoliticalImaginationFireSubjectsCommunicationCivilizationPerceptionModelsFlowStartingPatternsIdeologyCanadaAlliancesDominanceElectricalCultivationEbb And FlowWiringLinkages
Author:B. W. Powe
Create image

“We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer. We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you. May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!”

IfsWorldWayNeedsGivingMayMeanFactsWisdomFacesYoungSufferingPoliticsImaginationAbilityVisionEconomyEconomicTasksFaultsEnthusiasmGrantedLiberalismEconomic SystemsCorrectingDrastic
Author:Franklin D. Roosevelt
Create image

“The reader may ask himself if this is not cruelty and injustice of a kind so terrible that it beggars the imagination, and whether these poor people would not fare far better if they were entrusted to the devils in Hell than they do at the hands of the devils of the New World who masquerade as Christians.”

PeopleIfsWorldKindMayHandsChristianAsksImaginationPoorHellAtheismReaderTerribleDevilInjusticePositive AtheismCrueltyNew WorldPoor PeopleBeggarMasquerade
Author:Bartolome de las Casas
Create image

“I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.”

GivingMindMayRealitySeemsAblePassionBeliefCausesTermImaginationFictionTakenAtheismInfluenceObjectsPositive AtheismSuperiorsVarietyFirmConceptionSteadyVividLively
Book:Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition
Create image

“a novelist's chief desire is to be as unconscious as possible. He has to induce in himself a state of perpetual lethargy. He wants life to proceed with the utmost quiet and regularity. He wants to see the same faces, to read the same books, to do the same things day after day, month after month, while he is writing, so that nothing may break the illusion in which he is living - so that nothing may disturb or disquiet the mysterious nosings about, feelings around, darts, dashes, and sudden discoveries of that very shy and illusive spirit, the imagination.”

WantWritingMayBookStatesFeelingsFacesSpiritDesireImaginationBreakMonthsQuietIllusionDiscoveryMysteriousChiefsNovelistsUnconsciousShyPerpetualRegularityLethargyDartsSame Face
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)
Create image

“Intuition is a combination of insight and imagination that was once attributed to spiritual communication. Mathematicians call it 'fuzzy logic,' drawing conclusions from vague or subjective input. The mind becomes aware without the direct intervention of reasoning. Once you can imagine something you can begin the process of creating it. Executives use intuition to make many product, investment, and hiring decisions, even if they deny it. Success in business may depend on an accurate gut.”

IfsMindMayUseSpiritualProcessImaginationDecisionBusinessImagineProductsCommunicationDependsCreatingDirectLogicInvestmentDenyInsightIntuitionDrawingConclusionCombinationReasoningGutsExecutivesAccurateBusiness SuccessMathematicianVagueSubjectiveInterventionHiringInputFuzzyDrawing Conclusions
Book:Thinking In The Future Tense
Create image

“Fantasy is a literature particularly useful for embodying and examining the real difference between good and evil. In an America where our reality may seem degraded to posturing patriotism and self-righteous brutality, imaginative literature continues to question what heroism is, to examine the roots of power, and to offer moral alternatives. Imagination is the instrument of ethics. There are many metaphors besides battle, many choices besides war, and most ways of doing good do not, in fact, involve killing anybody. Fanstasy is good at thinking about those other ways.”

ThinkingWayMayWarRealSelfFactsRealitySeemsAmericaChoicesEvilLiteratureImaginationDifferencesMoralFantasyBattleOffersEthicsRootsInstrumentsKillingMetaphorAlternativesGood And EvilRighteousHeroismImaginativeDoing GoodBrutalityExaminingSelf Righteous
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
Create image

“Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self, exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him.”

MaySelfTogetherImaginationAbilityPleasureGriefSeeingEqualFortuneIllEnvyExceedEmulation
Book:The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: Part I, Human Nature, Part II, De Corpore Politico ; with Three Lives
Create image

“Some objects and events may be photographed, others, if one is to render their true quality, should be painted or set to music, since their essence is more faithfully reproduced through imagination than by the journalistic report.”

IfsShouldMayImaginationQualityEventsObjectsPhotographyEssenceReportsJournalistic
Book:New York 22: that district of the City which lies between Fiftieth and Sixtieth Streets, Fifth Avenue, and the East River
Create image

“A minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendor which dazzles the imagination. Whatsoever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill; all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine.”

LifeMindMayEnjoyImaginationDarknessMinutesBuildingMinesOfficeTablesLuxuryAnalysisContemplationDisplayShrinksGrandeurSplendorOrnamentsDelicacyDampMagnificenceDazzleQuarryShambles
Book:The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd
Create image

“The argument from design is ultimately an appeal to miraculous causes, i.e., causes that do not, and cannot, occur in the natural course of events. This is why an explanation via design is not a legitimate alternative to scientific and other naturalistic modes of explanation. To refer to a miraculous cause is to refer to something that is inherently unknowable, and this sanctuary of ignorance explains nothing at all. However much it may soothe the imagination of the ignorant, it does nothing to satisfy the understanding of a rational person.”

MayPersonsDoeCoursesCausesUnderstandingImaginationNaturalAtheismEventsDesignIgnoranceArgumentPositive AtheismIgnorantRationalAlternativesAppealsExplanationMiraculousSanctuary
Book:Why Atheism?
Create image

“When this immediate evil power has been defeated, we shall not yet have won the long battle with the elemental barbarities. Another Hitler, it may be an invisible adversary, will attempt, again, and yet again, to destroy our frail civilization. Is it true, I wonder, that the only way to escape a war is to be in it? When one is a part of an actuality does the imagination find a release?”

WayMayLongDoeHas BeensWarEvilImaginationWonderCivilizationBattleInvisibleReleaseDefeatedAdversariesFrailActualityElementalsBarbarity
Author:Ellen Glasgow
Create image

“The so-called ‘crank’ may be quite original in his ideas. … Invention, however, in the engineering sense involves originality; but not that alone, if the results are to be of value. There is imagination more or less fertile, but with it a knowledge of what has been done before, carried perhaps by the memory, together with a sense of the present or prospective needs in art or industry. Necessity is not always the mother of invention. It may be prevision.”

IfsNeedsMayHas BeensArtIdeasDoneTogetherMotherValuesImaginationMemoriesResultsIndustryOriginalsInventionOriginalityEngineeringFertileCrankPrevision
Author:Elihu Thomson
Create image