Real-world problems almost always involve time constraints. Working under pressure requires prioritization. Stephen R. Covey warns: “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” But often urgent and important are labels for the same problem. Sometimes we do not know what the problem is, until it hits us in the face: Benjamin Franklin admonished: When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. Ralph Waldo Emerson also warned: “We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, up-heaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.”
Fortunately men and women have been working under pressure for all of History. My hope is that you will agree after reading all of this quote compilation you will agree that creative problem solving under pressure is possible. Pressure may even be a help. Samuel Johnson wrote: "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Horace observed: Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant. Sometimes the pressure we endure are one we create for ourselves. Tom Peters wrote: "Nearly 100% of innovation—from business to politics—is inspired not by "market analysis" but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things are."
TYPE QUOTES
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
-Horace
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
-Samuel Johnson
You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
-Walt Disney
QUOTE COLLECTION
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
-Horace
If there is not struggle, there is no progress.
-Frederick Douglass
The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.
- David Hume
We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, up-heaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
-Samuel Johnson
That necessity is the mother of invention.
-Jonathan Swift
a certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man.
-Thomas Carlyle
I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.
-Jeff Bezos
Excellence withers without an adversary.
-Seneca
You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
-Walt Disney
The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
-Jules Henri Poincare
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
-Helen Keller
To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.
-Leonard Bernstein
Human energies--love, art, perseverance, wisdom--are born of difficulty.
-Conrad Richter
It really seems as if failure and hardship make more of a human being of folks than success.
-Gene Stratton-Porter
Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity.
-T.S. Eliot
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
-Kurt Vonnegut
The only available method for changing ideas is conflict...
-Edward De Bono
Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
-William Blake
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
-Carl Sagan
Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.
-Herbert Humphrey
Truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas.
-John Stuart Mill
It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live.
-George Vaillant
The better work men do is always done under stress and at great personal cost.
-William Carlos Williams
A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form. It's a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits.
-Chris Baty
Nearly 100% of innovation—from business to politics—is inspired not by "market analysis" but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things are.’
-Tom Peters
So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it -- perhaps as much more as the roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole.
-Will Durant
How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have hope of making some progress.
-Niels Bohr
Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting ad contriving.
-John Dewey
You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”
-Bill Watterson
I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.
-William Saroyan
Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face.
-James D. Finley
The breakthrough innovations come when the tension is greatest and the resources are most limited. That's when people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.
-Clayton M. Christensen
Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.
-Stephen R. Covey
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
-Theodore Rubin
SELECTED POSTERS
The above posters are (A - G) from my poster collection. I will be publishing more posters later. The following table Displays the position of these posters in my classification of Phases and Topics of the Creative Process. My posts will follow the order of the following table. This post is V.1 on The Need for Tension. It is V point 1 because I have many more posters on this topic and anticipate posting more as V.2 etc.
……………………………………………………………More Quote-Posters…………………………………………….
List of the Phases and Topics correlated to the Steps in the Scientific Method. These phases and topics have been derived from study of quotations from many creative individual from many fields of endeavor.
My goal is to publish quote poster collections on A through W as individual posts, eventually. Currently my quote collection numbers over 4,000 and my poster collection includes nearly 1,400 different individuals. I have created over 50 posters for each Phase and Topic listed in the above table. Advise and wisdom from as many individuals as possible is my goal. These quotes and the posters have driven the classification above. - Apply for a free subscription. Thanks Walt.
The next phase of the process is labeled W.1 Management and Leadership.
Walter H Pierce