“This new meta-system is very much in favor of the self, but a self that is based on a proper sense of dignity, not on an inflated ego. A person who dare not admit he is wrong inflates his ego but weakens his self.”

We need creativity in order to break free from the temporary structures that have been set up by a particular sequence of experience.

America is not just a country, it’s an idea.

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

I’m tired of dreaming. I’m into doing at the moment. It’s, like, let’s only have goals that we can go after.

If you do not design the future, someone or something else will design it for you.

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.

Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways.

To be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or find yourself in a rapid growth field.

A characteristic of intuitive solutions and new ideas is that of being obvious once they are discovered.

Asking a question is the simplest way of focusing thinking asking the right question may be the most important part of thinking.

It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions, not repeated assessment of their validity.

I do a great deal of work with young children, and if you give a child a problem, he may come up with a highly original solution, because he doesn’t have the established route to it.

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.

Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.

Possibilities play a much bigger role in thinking than most people believe. Without possibilities you cannot make progress.

It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.

We got a lot of politicians up there on Capital Hill. Ain’t it funny how they prosper while the country stands still?

If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one’s desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?

Nature has her proper interest; and he will know what it is, who believes and feels, that every Thing has a Life of its own, and that we are all one Life.

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.

If we don’t give science its proper place in our national life. We shall no doubt be training all the bullfighters we need, because we don’t use many.

How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?

I can’t even give my father a proper gift. Every single Father’s Day means so much to me. I’m so close to him. He’s my big brother, but also my father.

We don’t have storm troopers that just knock on the door of every American citizen. We don’t do that for any crime. But when we have evidence that a particular person has committed a crime, we send law enforcement to apprehend them.