Business innovation can help drive a company’s success. In order for a company to be innovative, it needs a specific mindset and processes in place that allow it to be truly open to new ideas. The pandemic upended the ways people work and demonstrated the need for innovation as we move forward and embrace flexible work. The 35 quotes below will help inspire you to think outside the box.
Best innovation quotes for business
1. “A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.” —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
2. “Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.” —Alfred North Whitehead
3. “Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money.” —William J. Cameron
4. “If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.” —Rollo May
5. “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” —Theodore Levitt
6. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” —Albert Einstein
7. “Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation, in its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.” —J. K. Rowling
8. “It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago but will soon be out of date.” —Roger von Oech
9. “Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” —William James
10. “When all think alike, then no one is thinking.” —Walter Lippmann
11. “I am looking for a lot of people who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.” —Henry Ford
12. “If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it.” —Gordon MacKenzie
13. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” —Alan Kay, computer scientist
14. “There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.” —Brené Brown
15. “If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.” —Charles Kettering
16. “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves.” —Carl Jung
17. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” —Albert Einstein
18. “Swipe from the best, then adapt.” —Tom Peters
19. “The greater the contrast, the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.” —Carl Jung
20. “We don’t know who discovered water, but we’re certain it wasn’t a fish.” —John Culkin
21. “Innovation—any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.” —Warren Bennis
22. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. “Never confuse motion with action.” —Ernest Hemingway
24. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” —Steve Jobs
25. “The lightning spark of thought generated in the solitary mind awakens its likeness in another mind.” —Thomas Carlyle
26. “Innovation opportunities do not come with the tempest but with the rustling of the breeze.” —Peter Drucker
27. “No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered.” —Winston Churchill
28. “Finding opportunity is a matter of believing it’s there.” —Barbara Corcoran
29. “If I have 1,000 ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.” —Alfred Nobel
30. “What is now proved was once only imagined.” —William Blake
31. “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, what the world needs most are dreamers that do.” —Sarah Ban Breathnach
32. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” —Maya Angelou
33. “Exploration is the engine that drives innovation. Innovation drives economic growth.” —Edith Widder
34. “When money, rather than innovation or value, is your competitive advantage, that’s when things get boring and stagnant, and monopolies take root.” —Hank Green
35. “You can’t allow tradition to get in the way of innovation. There’s a need to respect the past, but it’s a mistake to revere your past.” —Bob Iger
No matter how you innovate, the place where you work can make a difference. WeWork All Access and WeWork On Demand open the door to hundreds of inspiring spaces all over the world. After two years of a pandemic, the energy and creativity of seeing teammates in person could be just the thing you need to spark new ideas.
This article was originally published on October 11, 2019, and has been updated throughout by the editors.
Kate Bratskeir is a former writer for WeWork’s Ideas by WeWork, focusing on sustainability and workplace psychology. Previously, she was a senior editor at Mic and HuffPost. Her work has appeared in New York magazine, Health, Travel & Leisure, Women’s Health, and more.
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