Jonah Lehrer Quotes

Quotes about:

• Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Stubborn, Grit, Quitting

  48 Copy quote

• We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything. Several new science papers suggest that getting away is an essential habit of effective thinking. When we escape from the place we spend most of our time, the mind is suddenly made aware of all those errant ideas we'd previously suppressed. We start thinking about obscure possibilitiebsthat never would have occurred to us if we'd stayed home.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Distance, Home, Creativity

  18 Copy quote

• To have a style is to be stuck.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Style, Stuck

  27 Copy quote

• Creativity is a spark. It can be excruciating when we're rubbing two rocks together and getting nothing. And it can be intensely satisfying when the flame catches and a new idea sweeps around the world.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Creativity, Rocks, Flames

  27 Copy quote

• We need to be willing to risk embarrassment, ask silly questions, surround ourselves with people who don't know what we're talking about. We need to leave behind the safety of our expertise.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Silly, Talking, People

  17 Copy quote

• The best way to solve a problem? Try explaining it to somebody outside your field.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Leadership, Trying, Way

  6 Copy quote

• What you discover when you look at creativity from the perspective of the brain is that it is universal. We're all creative all of the time, we can't help but be creative.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Creativity, Perspective, Creative

  "Jonah Lehrer: We can all be as creative as Picasso... we just have to learn how". Interview with Tim Lewis, www.theguardian.com. April 14, 2012.

  17 Copy quote

• If you're trying to be more creative, one of the most important things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the information to which you are exposed.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Diversity, Creative, Important

  4 Copy quote

• People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Reality, People, Important

  8 Copy quote

• The answer will only arrive after we stop looking for it.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Answers

  11 Copy quote

• You know more than you know.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Knows

  Jonah Lehrer (2010). “How We Decide”, p.248, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• In fact, the only way to remain creative over time--to not be undone by our expertise--is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Ignorance, Creative, Way

  10 Copy quote

• When we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Art, Venture, Edges

  Jonah Lehrer (2011). “Proust Was a Neuroscientist”, p.197, Canongate Books

  13 Copy quote

• While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Human Nature, Notes, Nurture

  Jonah Lehrer (2008). “Proust Was a Neuroscientist”, p.140, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• The inconsistency of genius is a consistent theme of creativity.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Creativity, Creating, Genius

  "How Do We Identify Good Ideas?" by Jonah Lehrer, www.wired.com. January 23, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• So let's not pretend that travel is always fun. We don't spend 10 hours lost in the Louvre because we like it, and the view from the top of Machu Picchu probably doesn't make up for the hassle of lost luggage. (More often than not, I need a holiday after my holiday.) We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Fun, Distance, Holiday

  "Why we travel" by Jonah Lehrer, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2010.

  72 Copy quote

• The imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Imagination, Break Out, Boxes

  Jonah Lehrer (2010). “How We Decide”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• there simply is no way to describe the past without lying. Our memories are not like fiction. They are fiction.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Memories, Lying, Past

  Jonah Lehrer (2011). “Proust Was a Neuroscientist”, p.88, Canongate Books

  6 Copy quote

• For too long, we've assumed that there is a single template for human nature, which is why we diagnose most deviations as disorders. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of minds. And that's a very good thing.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Reality, Long, Mind

  9 Copy quote

• It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry. If they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere and keep on working until the work is done... I bet there isn't a single highly successful person who has not depended on grit. Nobody is talented enough to not have to work hard, and that's what grit allows you to do.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Success, Hard Work, Writing

  12 Copy quote

• How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self-awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he's feeling what he's feeling. If the particular feeling makes no sense—if the amygdala is simply responding to a loss frame, for example—then it can be discounted. The prefrontal cortex can deliberately choose to ignore the emotional brain.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Loss, Simple, Emotional

  6 Copy quote

• Creativity shouldn't be seen as something otherworldly. It shouldn't be thought of as a process reserved for artists and inventors and other 'creative types.' The human mind, after all, has the creative impulse built into its operating system, hard-wired into its most essential programming code. At any given moment, the brain is automatically forming new associations, continually connecting an everyday x to an unexpected y.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Creativity, Artist, Creative

  Jonah Lehrer (2008). “Proust Was a Neuroscientist”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” Nemeth says. “It wakes us right up.”

  Jonah Lehrer

  Views, California, Perspective

  "Groupthink: The brainstorming myth" by Jonah Lehrer, www.newyorker.com. January 30, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• The vocational approach at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) helps build grit in students. It teaches them how to be single-minded in pursuit of a goal, to sacrifice for the sake of a passion. The teachers demand hard work from their kids because they know, from personal experience, that creative success requires nothing less.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Teacher, Art, Hard Work

  6 Copy quote

• It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say.

  Jonah Lehrer

  Hard, Hard Things

  Jonah Lehrer (2008). “Proust Was a Neuroscientist”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

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