The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- People who lack creativity often compensate by taking themselves too seriously. True creativity flows when ego is set aside.
- In plain terms
- When you stop being creative, you tend to focus on your own importance instead.
- What can you take from it?
- Prioritize creative flow over personal ego to maintain authenticity.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When do you take yourself too seriously?
- How does your ego affect your work?
Another view
Seriousness can sometimes be necessary for discipline and focus.
More from Eric Hoffer
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a l…
Permalink to quote #197 The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
Permalink to quote #199 The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual wil…
Permalink to quote #196
Related quotes
I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him.
Ford Madox FordFord Madox Ford quote #10 L'amour-propre est le plus grand de tous les flatteurs.
Francois de La RochefoucauldFrancois de La Rochefoucauld quote #3 The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something e…
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson quote #4