Scott Barry Kaufman famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Genius involves figuring out who you are, and owning yourself. It's about amplifying your best traits and compensating for the rest. Geniuses grab life by the horns, and persevere amidst setbacks. They take control of their lives, instead of waiting for others to open up doors. In this very important sense, greatness in completely, utterly, made.
-- Scott Barry Kaufman

#Greatness #Doors #Waiting
Talent emerges over the course of a lifetime of reciprocal interactions between the developing brain and a stimulating environment.
-- Scott Barry Kaufman

#Brain #Growth #Talent
Inspiration is not purely passive, but does favor the prepared mind.
-- Scott Barry Kaufman

#Inspiration #Mind #Favors
It's actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self. The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self Imaginative people have messier minds.
-- Scott Barry Kaufman

#Self #People #Creative
I am not talking about rebelliousness, but giving people time for constructive internal reflection and even daydreaming. A lot of research is suggesting that the more that you demand people's external attention, the less chance you are allowing them to dip into the default mode where daydreams and reflection happen - and lot of great ideas are not going to come from the brute force of work but from personal life experience. Mind-wandering seems to be essential to the creative process, and I don't think a lot of businesses are aware of that fact.
-- Scott Barry Kaufman

#Reflection #Thinking #Talking

You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry
Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition... and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can't understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.
It would appear... that moral phenomena, when observed on a great scale, are found to resemble physical phenomena; and we thus arrive, in inquiries of this kind, at the fundamental principle, that the greater the number of individuals observed, the more do individual peculiarities, whether physical or moral, become effaced, and leave in a prominent point of view the general facts, by virtue of which society exists and is preserved.
Education has a tremendous power on man. Can't we see to which astonishing disciple the people of Sparte have submitted ("s'est pliÃ©", Fr.) for centuries, and this with a view to very petty purposes: purely outer greatness, the military predominace of Sparte. This example proves that man can everything on themselves when they want it ("peuvent tout sur eux-mÃªmes quand ils le veulent", Fr.); therefore it would only be a question of making them will the good.
The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.
Once a sage asked why scholars always flock to the doors of the rich, whilst the rich are not inclined to call at the doors of scholars. â€˜The scholarsâ€˜ he answered , â€˜are well aware of the use of money, but the rich are ignorant of the nobility of science.â€™
Death is a door life opens.
Don't take rest after your first victory because if you fail in second, more lips are waiting to say that your first victory was just luck.
I'm waiting for the time when I fail - because we all fail - and I'm ready, I'll take up carpentry.
When a girl is beautiful, she gets to pick - she never has to wait for someone to choose her.

Scott Barry Kaufman famous quotes

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