Has it ever happened to you that you were looking to create, ideate, or innovate but did not get enough motivation to do any of those?
It happens to the best of us. Most often, you might find inspiration in a few words of wisdom from the much-experienced.
You see, reading words of wisdom uttered or written by people who have already achieved great names and fame in their respective fields not only gives us an insight into how they thought but also enables us to look at our problems from their point of view.
With that thought, we curated a list of 55 innovation quotes that will inspire you to ideate, create, and innovate in 2023. Which of them is your favorite? Comment and let us know below.
Quotes on Innovation and Creativity
- “Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
— Dr. Albert Szent- Györgyi
- “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ”
— George Bernard Shaw
- “If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.”
— Steven Johnson
- “No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies.”
— Seth Godin
- “Optimism is an essential ingredient of innovation. How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in safe places?”
— Robert Noyce
- “When money, rather than innovation or value, is your competitive advantage, that’s when things get boring and stagnant, and monopolies take root.”
— Hank Green
- “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
— Steve Jobs
- “I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”
— Jeff Bezos
- “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
— Wayne Gretzky
- “Innovation is taking two things that exist and putting them together in a new way.”
— Tom Freston
- “The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”
— Thomas Edison
- “When looking to innovate—fail forward. Innovation can be a chaotic process, embrace it and learn from your failures.”
— Luke Wester
- “You can’t allow tradition to get in the way of innovation. There’s a need to respect the past, but it’s a mistake to revere your past.”
— Bob Iger
- “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
— Alan Kay
- “If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”
— Woody Allen
- “Most innovation involves doing the things we do every day a little bit better rather than creating something completely new and different.”
— Darin Bifani
- “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.”
— Theodore Levitt
- “Innovation is the unrelenting drive to break the status quo and develop anew where few have dared to go.”
— Steven Jeffes
- “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.”
— Ancient Chinese Proverb
- “Innovation is more likely to come from a person who sits down and does the same thing every single day until they become an expert than from a person who sits down once because they feel inspired.”
— Stacy Caprio
- “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.”
— Brene Brown
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building on the new.”
— Socrates
- “Innovation is rewarded. Execution is worshipped.”
— Eric Thomas
- “Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.”
— Sam Walton
- “When all think alike, then no one is thinking.”
— Walter Lippmann
- “New ideas for innovation grow out of the minds of each new generation. Having an institution of higher learning that can help young people put those ideas into action is critical.”
— Jay Samit
- “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
— Steve Jobs
- “Innovation comes from saying NO to 1000 things.”
— Steve Jobs
- “There’s a way to do it better. Find it.”
— Thomas Edison
- “Daring ideas are like chessmen moving forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
— Johann Goethe
- “Innovation- any new idea- by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, and monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.”
— Warren Bennis
- “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”
— Lee Iacocca
- “There are different ways to do innovation. You can plant a lot of seeds, not be committed to any particular one of them, but just see what grows. And this isn’t how we’ve approached this. We go mission-first, then focus on the pieces we need and go deep on them and be committed to them.”
— Mark Zuckerberg
- “The only way you survive is you continuously transform into something else. It’s this idea of continuous transformation that makes you an innovation company.”
— Ginni Rometti
- “Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.”
— Dean Kamen
- “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, what the world needs most are dreamers that do.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach
- “I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”
— Jeff Bezos
- “A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- “Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money.”
— William J. Cameron
- “Innovation survives only when people believe in their ideas.”
— Levo League
- “The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”
— Linus Pauling
- “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
— Abraham Maslow
- “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
— Maya Angelou
- “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”
— Elon Musk
- “Modern society is built upon two things: truth, which is discovered, and innovation, which is created.”
— True Tamplin
- “Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.”
— William Pollard
- “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
— Will Rogers
- “When the rate of change outside is more than what is inside, be sure that the end is near.”
— Azim Premji
- “Promotions may win quarters, innovation wins decades.”
— Bob McDonald
- “You cannot discover new oceans unless you dare to lose sight of the shore.”
— Andre Gide
- “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there will be no hope for it.”
— Albert Einstein
- “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
— Demosthenes
- “Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into invoices.”
— Lewis Duncan
- “The biggest risk in innovation lies in sticking too closely to your plans.”
— D.Hills
- “The best ideas lose their owners and take on lives of their own.”
— Nolan Bushnell
Inspired yet?
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