82 Innovation Quotes To Make You More Creative

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder and chief editor of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm, powerful, and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

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Here are 82 of the best innovation quotes I could find. What’s my goal? To inspire and motivate you to get even more creative in your work and life. You’ll discover authors like Einstein, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and many more. Enjoy!

Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things. Steve Jobs

Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough. Elon Musk

Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure. Albert Einstein

True innovation comes from those willing to break the rules. Anthony Pompliano

You get creative when you replace fear of the unknown with love of the unknown. Maxime Lagacé

innovation quotes moving scarily pace bill gates wisdom

Innovation is moving at a scarily fast pace. Bill Gates

Organization is the enemy of innovation. Naval Ravikant

There’s a way to do it better – Find it. Thomas Edison

No organization ever created an innovation. People innovate, not companies. Seth Godin

True innovation comes from the outsiders. Anthony Pompliano (Source)

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If you never fail, you’re only trying things that are too easy and playing far below your level. Eliezer Yudkowsky (Artificial intelligence researcher)

Innovative people struggle to stick to conventional wisdom when needed. Kunal Shah

Spend less time on finance, spend less time in conference rooms, less time on Power Point and more time trying to make your product as amazing as possible. Elon Musk

Innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle. Simon Sinek

Optimism is fuel for innovation. Lex Fridman

Related

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You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate. Jeff Bezos

An innovation, or cluster of innovations, in one field ends up triggering changes that seem to belong to a different domain altogether. Steven Johnson

Innovation is applied creativity. By definition, innovation is always about introducing something new, or improved, or both and it is usually assumed to be a positive thing. Ken Robinson

Great innovation only happens when people aren’t afraid to do things differently. Georg Cantor

You can’t do radically innovative work unless you’re willing to be misunderstood for many years. David Perell

The outsized discoveries – the “non-linear” ones – are highly likely to require wandering. Jeff Bezos

Men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. Lloyd Jones

Innovation is the child of freedom and the parent of prosperity. Matt Ridley

Sometime over the next decade your company or organisation will be challenged to change in a way for which it has no precedent. Gary Hamel

If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not innovating. Cameron Winklevoss

I believe innovation is the most powerful force for change in the world. People who are pessimistic about the future tend to extrapolate from the present in a straight line. But innovation fundamentally shifts the trajectory of development. Bill Gates

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Science and innovation should be above politics. Lex Fridman

Creativity and innovation are sparked in the silent mind. B. D. Schiers

Wall Street won’t reinvent finance. Hollywood won’t reinvent filmmaking. Venture capitalists won’t reinvent venture. Career politicians won’t reinvent politics. Innovation rarely occurs from the inside. Sahil Lavingia

Innovation requires foolishness. Maxime Lagacé

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death. Steven Pressfield

In the modern world, don’t minimize your risks – maximize your opportunities. Naval Ravikant

People often think that the best way to predict the future is by collecting as much data as possible before making a decision. But this is like driving a car looking only at the rearview mirror—because data is only available about the past. Clayton Christensen

You have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does, or else you’re gonna make the same connections and you won’t be innovative. Steve Jobs

Don’t fight technology innovation. It won’t stop. Be with it. Changpeng Zhao (Binance) (Source)

I do what others will not. That alone is innovation. Jhin (League of Legends)

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. Carl Jung

Innovation is an act of defiance against the status quo. Anthony Pompliano

Good morning to everyone except the politicians who are trying to kill innovation in America. Anthony Pompliano

Necessity is the mother of invention. English proverb

Meditate to innovate. Brian Norgard

I’ll always bet on innovation and progress. Being a pessimist is no fun. Anthony Pompliano

Invest in innovation for outsized returns. Anthony Pompliano

Eventual upside is proportionate to your willingness to be misunderstood. Jack Butcher

My favorite definition of innovation: Innovation is the application of technology to solve human problems. Simon Sinek

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. Peter F. Drucker

If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Henry Ford

The most prosperous countries of the future will be the ones who choose to embrace innovation and technology today. Anthony Pompliano

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order that is not yet understood. Henry Miller

One form of innovation is originality. Another form is synthesis. People often focus so much on being original that they overlook the value of synthesizing ideas from different sources. There’s a lot of value in connecting previously unconnected ideas. James Clear

Invention is not about being brilliant — it’s about being logical and persistent. Sir James Dyson (tim.blog)

It takes a special energy, over and above one’s creative potential, a special audacity or subversiveness, to strike out in a new direction once one is settled. Oliver Sacks

Related: 7 Habits Of Innovative Thinkers (fastcompany.com)

Creativity involves not only years of conscious preparation and training but unconscious preparation as well. Oliver Sacks

Unless we improve our rate of innovation dramatically, then there is no chance of a base on the moon or a city on Mars. This is my biggest concern. Elon Musk

To invent, you have to take the odd and the strange combination of the years of knowledge and experience on one side of the brain, and on the other side, the necessity for the brief to make sense. Paula Scher

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. Mary Shelley

Productivity comes from making habits of doing. Creativity comes from breaking habits of thinking. Innovation comes from toggling between novel ideas and familiar routines. Adam Grant

Collaboration equals innovation. Michael Dell

From order comes progress. From chaos comes innovation. Simon Sinek

Encourage innovation. Change is our lifeblood, stagnation our death knell. David Ogilvy

Bureaucracy and innovation don’t mix well. Lex Fridman

If you are doing something that has never been done before, you are by definition “unqualified” to do it. Innovators push beyond the edges of the map. @TheStoicEmperor

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. Buckminster Fuller

Innovation is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. Ludwig von Mises

The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order. Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince)

The real value in truly disruptive technology is not in improving the old world, but rather unlocking new products and services that were never possible before. Anthony Pompliano (Source)

Pessimists spend their day betting against entrepreneurs, innovation, and progress. Not only is it a sad life to live, but it is also a losing strategy. Anthony Pompliano

Always question your best ideas. Great thinkers, icons, and innovators think forward and backward. They drive their brain in reverse. James Clear

The result of creativity and innovation is new ideas, but the cause of creativity and innovation is more ideas. The person with a bigger intellectual toolbox has more entry points and additional lines of attack to solve problems. Read widely. Explore broadly. Then apply. James Clear

How do you innovate? First, try to get in trouble. I mean serious, but not terminal, trouble. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile)

Meditation and walking is like cheating in the game of creative thinking. Sven Schnieders

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. Elon Musk

Play is the answer to how anything new comes about. Jean Piaget

First, disruptive products are simpler and cheaper; they generally promise lower margins, not greater profits. Second, disruptive technologies typically are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets. And third, leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want, and indeed initially can’t use, products based on disruptive technologies. Clayton Christensen (The Innovator’s Dilemma, Amazon book)

The best way to have valuable ideas is to understand the entire landscape of a field and figure out what can emerge now that couldn’t before. Sam Altman

Worst place to develop a new business model is from within your existing business model. Clayton M. Christensen

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. Brené Brown

Mankind’s ability to bounce back and innovate shines brightest when we hit either peak boredom or peak danger. @orangebook_

Innovation requires dissent. Angela Jiang

Innovation: Imagine the future and fill in the gaps. Brian Halligan

Think non-linearly, earn non-linearly. Jack Butcher

Our need will be the real creator. Plato

Innovation is the only way to win. Steve Jobs

Conclusion

I strongly believe that the only way to encourage innovation is to give it to the young. The young have a great advantage in that they are ignorant. Because I think ignorance in science is very important. If you’re like me and you know too much you can’t try new things. I always work in fields of which I’m totally ignorant. Sydney Brenner (Biologist and Nobel Prize winner)

Conclusion

Further Readings