Quotes about imagination
page 40

Leopold II of Belgium photo

“Nothing is more difficult than arriving at a court where nobody knows anyone in the world, add to that the Austrian Etiquette, and you can imagine what kind of evening I had to endure.”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Leopold II - Het Hele Verhaal (Aflevering 1) https://odysee.com/@BelgianCongo:3/Leopold-II-Het-Hele-Verhaal-Aflevering-1:1 Prince Leopold in a letter to his brother Prince Philippe and sister Princess Carlota, on being received by the Austrian court to meet his future bride 'Marie Henriette of Austria'.

“Let death be what takes us, not lack of imagination.”

BJ Miller (1971) palliative caregiver

On What really matter at the end of life in "On What really matter at the end of life" https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life on TED.COM (2015 March)

Isabel Allende photo

“I imagined the structure of the novel like a braid. My job was to blend three strands evenly and neatly. Each piece of the braid represented one of the stories. The characters were very different but they had something in common: they were emotionally wounded by events of their past.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

On her work In the Midst of Winter in “INTERVIEWS: Isabel Allende” https://bookpage.com/interviews/21986-isabel-allende-fiction#.XajuoPlKjcs in BookPage (2017 Oct 31)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Danez Smith photo

“Poems have helped me figure out a lot about queer sexuality – it is a big hill to climb. The ability to transform myself in poetry helps me imagine myself differently in the real world.”

Danez Smith American poet

On how poetry has given him insight into his sexuality in “‘Every poem is political’: Danez Smith, the YouTube star shaking up poetry” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/28/danez-smith-interview-poetry-dont-call-us-dead-dear-white-america in The Guardian (2018 Jan 28)

Jenny Han photo

“Well, I don’t ever plan anything in my books. Since I don’t outline, I tend to just go wherever my imagination leads me and where I feel excited to write about. I tend to write scenes that I would want to read.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

As quoted in "To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before author Jenny Han on watching her book become a phenomenon" in Vox (4 June 2019) https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/4/18648808/to-all-the-boys-ive-loved-before-jenny-han-interview

Edward Teller photo
Johann Kaspar Lavater photo

“You are not very good if you are not better than your best friends imagine you to be.”

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss poet

No. 536
Aphorisms on Man (1788)

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“The imagination loves to trifle with what is not.”

The Sea Fogs
The Silverado Squatters (1883)

Émile Banning photo

“A people needs air, broad horizons, an ideal which charms its imagination and makes its heart beat; reduce it to household calculations, to the politics of party interests, it will disintegrate and corrupt itself.”

Émile Banning (1836–1898) academic, civil servant

Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), Emile Banning (1836-1898): The Don Quichotte of the ‘liberal civilization’ in Congo, A romantic associate of Leopold II. http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#_ftn194 CROKAERT, P. Brialmont, 23.

Irene Sabatini photo

“How my imagination soared — the moon seemed so close that I felt I could reach out and touch it. And then my mind wandered: what are those noises outside?”

Irene Sabatini (1967) writer from Zimbabwe

Source: National Geographic https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2020/09/notes-from-an-author-irene-sabatini-on-finding-inspiration-in-zimbabwes-landscapes

“You will hear things of Al Qaeda that you never imagined.”

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (1965) One of Al-Qaeda's official spokesmen

Source: Kronos US v Sulaiman Abu Ghayth Statement https://kronosadvisory.com/Kronos_US_v_Sulaiman_Abu_Ghayth_Statement.1.pdf (1st March 2013)

Adolf Hitler photo

“Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the godhead into a mockery.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: 13 December 1941, quoted in Hitler's Table Talk, 1941–1944

Madeline Carroll photo

“Whenever I watch movies, it doesn’t matter what it is, I try to I imagine somebody else doing the character.”

Madeline Carroll (1996) American actress

Source: Kevin Costner and Madeline Carroll Interview – SWING VOTE https://collider.com/kevin-costner-and-madeline-carroll-interview-swing-vote/ (July 29, 2008)

Marcus Aurelius photo
Masahiro Shinoda photo

“One thing I can say is either to look at films very carefully, watch a lot of films, or don't see any films at all. Just imagine!”

Masahiro Shinoda (1931) Japanese film director and screenwriter

Source: The Movie Experience: Conversation with actress Shima Iwashita and director Masahiro Shinoda/Advice to Students http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Shinoda_Iwashita/shinoda_iwashita5.html (February 27, 1999)

Bob Inglis photo

“Can you imagine the emptiness of knowing that you stood for nothing, that you risked nothing, that all you did was follow fearful people to where they were already going rather than trying to lead them to a better place.”

Bob Inglis (1959) Former U.S. congressman

Source: "Bob Inglis: How I changed my mind about climate change" https://www.npr.org/2021/12/03/1061214253/bob-inglis-how-i-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change, NPR (December 3, 2021)

Chetan Bhagat photo
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo
Jack Vance photo
Laurence Tribe photo

“[W]e may... find more common ground than we currently imagine.”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990), Approaching Abortion Anew

Aristotle photo

“It is impossible for the same attribute at once to belong and not to belong to the same thing and in the same relation"; and we must add any further qualifications that may be necessary to meet logical objections. This is the most certain of principles, since it possesses the required definition; for it is impossible for anyone to suppose that the same thing is and is not, as some imagine that Heraclitus says.”

Book IV, 1005
Metaphysics
Original: (el) τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ ἅμα ὑπάρχειν τε καὶ μὴ ὑπάρχειν ἀδύνατον τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ κατὰ τὸ αὐτό (καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα προσδιορισαίμεθ᾽ ἄν, ἔστω προσδιωρισμένα πρὸς τὰς λογικὰς δυσχερείας): αὕτη δὴ πασῶν ἐστὶ βεβαιοτάτη τῶν ἀρχῶν: ἔχει γὰρ τὸν εἰρημένον διορισμόν. ἀδύνατον γὰρ ὁντινοῦν ταὐτὸν ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι καὶ μὴ εἶναι, καθάπερ τινὲς οἴονται λέγειν Ἡράκλειτον.
Source: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0051%3Abook%3D4%3Asection%3D1005b

Prevale photo

“A mind that can imagine… can realize.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Una mente che può immaginare... può realizzare.
Source: prevale.net

Meister Eckhart photo

“The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Circulated on the Internet, this is an amended version of a quote from Eckhart's sermon iusti vivent in aeternum: There are simple people who imagine they are going to see God as if He were standing here and they there. This is not true. God and I are one.
Middle High German: “Sumlîche einveltige liute wænent, sie süln got sehen, als er dâ stande und sie hie. Des enist niht. Got und ich wir sîn ein.”
Disputed

Alfred Austin photo

“Imagination should
A reconciler, not a rebel, be,
To teach the heart of man to apprehend
Nature's vicissitudes, and bear his own,
With sympathetic fancy.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Urania in Act IV, sc. ii; p. 178.

Peeni Henare photo

“You imagine Pacific islands, the tropical nature of the place and the bright colour of the sands and beaches. It's all very grey and dull because of the ash that just blankets the entire land.”

Peeni Henare (1980) New Zealand politician

Tonga
Source: Peeni Henare (2022) cited in: " Tonga airport runway being cleared of ash as Australian planes ready to depart https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/20/tonga-airport-runway-being-cleared-of-ash-as-australian-planes-ready-to-depart" in The Guardian, 19 January 2022.

John Wesley photo
John Wesley photo
Dick Winters photo
Michel Henry photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Alfred Austin photo
Louis De Bernières photo
Amantle Montsho photo

“It was always exciting to represent my country on the international stage. Imagine the adrenaline rush when I step on the track knowing that all eyes are on me. That made it extra special. I had fans from all over the world but the support back home was the best”

Amantle Montsho (1983) Motswana sprinter

https://www.mmegi.bw/sports/thank-you-amantle/news Thank You Amantle, Mmegi Online, Friday 15 October 2021, Retrieved 16 November 2021
"Simply the Greatest" (2020)

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Imagine a permanent, shivering gloom, and never a moment without hunger, thirst and exhaustion. Imagine the constant fear of suffering illness or injury.”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

“You’ve just described nine-tenths of human history.”
Open and Shut (p. 265)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)

A. C. Grayling photo

“The claim is that educating moral sensibility through imagination has a general tendency, not a universal effect.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 3, “Emancipation and Ethics” (p. 14)

A. C. Grayling photo

“Emancipation is always at risk from the usual sources—demagogues, civil and international war, the tenure that superstitions have over the human imagination—so there are no guarantees that progress will continue.”

A. C. Grayling (1949) English philosopher

Source: Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (2002), Chapter 3, “Emancipation and Ethics” (p. 12)

Ronnie James Dio photo

“Lyrically I like to use themes that make the listener use his or her imagination, and to give a little of the lessons I've learned in my own life. The best subjects are always people, who never fail to amaze me by their unpredictability.”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

Speaking on his plans for the Dio album Master of the Moon, interview https://ronniejamesdiosite.com/NewsInterviews/Interviews/metalmastersJAN04/MMjan04RJD.html, Metal Masters, January 2004

Joe Biden photo

“I just can’t imagine how the families are feeling — the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what’s happened.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, April 2021, Remarks by President Biden on the Shooting in Boulder, Colorado

Thomas Sankara photo

“In these tempestuous times, we can't leave our enemies of the past and the present the monopoly on thought, imagination, and creativity.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

From a speech to the United Nations on 4 October 1984 https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2007/10/SANKARA/15203

Joe Biden photo

“Imagine what it’s like to look at your child who needs insulin and have no idea how you’re going to pay for it. What it does to your dignity, your ability to look your child in the eye, to be the parent you expect to be.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Remarks of President Joe Biden – State of the Union Address As Prepared for Delivery (March 1, 2022) https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/01/remarks-of-president-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-address-as-delivered/
2022, March 2022, State of the Union Address

Maximilien Robespierre photo

“Citizens, imagination usually sets the limits of the possible and the impossible; but when you have the will to do good, you must have the courage to cross these limits.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

13 August 1793, Presenting his education plan to the National Convention
Misc Quotes

Seneca the Younger photo

“There are more things, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIII: On Groundless Fears
Original: (la) Plura sunt, quae nos terrent quam quae premunt, et saepius opinione quam re laboramus.

Annie Ernaux photo

“The worst thing about shame is that we imagine we are the only ones to experience it.”

Quoted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 184, ed. Tom Burns and ‎Jeffrey Hunter (Gale, 2004), p. 164, and in The Poetics of Childhood by Roni Natov (Routledge, 2014), p. 220
Shame (1997)

Prevale photo

“A dream? With the mind you imagine it, with the will you realize it.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Un sogno? Con la mente lo immagini, con la volontà lo realizzi.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In art it is not enough to have talent. A true artist with the mind must never lack imagination and order his body to perform, remember and then archive.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nell'arte non basta avere talento. Un vero artista con la mente non deve mai mancare di immaginazione ed ordinare al proprio corpo di eseguire, ricordare e poi archiviare.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Whatever you want to create: imagine it. Realize it. Perfect it. Define it.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Qualsiasi cosa tu voglia creare: immaginala. Realizzala. Perfezionala. Definiscila.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“The woman loves to provoke who can dominate her imagination.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La donna ama provocare chi riesce a dominare la sua immaginazione.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Be very careful in expressing some words. They often have a strong emotional impact on a person and can hurt them more than your mind can imagine.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Fate molta attenzione nell'esprimere alcune parole. Spesso hanno un forte impatto emotivo su una persona e possono ferirla più di quanto la vostra mente possa immaginare.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“The capacity of imagination is to realize what you can imagine. Whatever creation needs imagination.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: La capacità di immaginazione consiste nel realizzare ciò che si può immaginare. Qualsiasi creazione ha bisogno di immaginazione.
Source: prevale.net

This quote waiting for review.
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Prevale photo

“The unpleasant thoughts of the day often reflect over into dreams, during rest… free your best imagination.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: I pensieri spiacevoli della giornata spesso si riflettono nei sogni, durante il riposo... liberate la vostra immaginazione migliore.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“In art, without imagination, nothing extraordinary has ever been created.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: In arte, senza immaginazione, non è mai stato creato nulla di straordinario.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“The unattainable inspires dreams and imagination: desire arises from the need to break the rules, by constantly feeling between the will and the limit.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'irraggiungibile ispira sogni e immaginazione: il desiderio nasce dal bisogno di infrangere le regole, sentendosi costantemente in bilico tra la volontà e il limite.
Source: prevale.net