Inspirational Quotes on Imagination

“He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort him!”

“How easy it is to fly on paper wings!”

“Los dolores serían menores entre los hombres si éstos (Dios sabe por qué están hechos así) no se ocuparan con tanto ahínco de imaginación en evocar los recuerdos de los males pasados en vez de soportar un presente tolerable.”

“Pardon me also, and deal mercifully with me, as often as I think of anything besides You in prayer. For I confess truly that I am accustomed to be very much distracted. Very often I am not where bodily I stand or sit; rather, I am where my thoughts carry me. Where my thoughts are, there am I; and frequently my thoughts are where my love is. That which naturally delights, or is by habit pleasing, comes to me quickly. Hence You Who are Truth itself, have plainly said: 'For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.' If I love heaven, I think willingly of heavenly things. If I love the world, I rejoice at the happiness of the world and grieve at its troubles. If I love the flesh, I often imagine things that are carnal. If I love the spirit, I delight in thinking of spiritual matters. For whatever I love, I am willing to speak and hear about.”

“...I do not think the resemblance between the Christian and the merely imaginative experience is accidental. I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least. "Reflect" is an important word. This lower life of the imagination is not a beginning of, nor a step towards, the higher life of the spirit, merely an image...But it still ha[s], at however many removes, the shape of the reality it reflected.”

“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world's supreme good.”

“Tanto è il potere che ha sulla mia carne un'illusione, un'immagine della mia mente, che quando dormo delle false visioni acquistano su di me una forza di suggestione quale da sveglio non hanno neppure quelle vere.”

“What do you expect?” “I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It’s all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery.“ “Daddy thought it must be the drains,” said Polly. “Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of un-interesting explanations,” said Digory.”

“[T]he many use art and the few receive it. The many behave in this like a man who talks who should listen or gives when he should take. I do not mean by this that the right spectator is passive. His is also an imaginative activity; but an obedient one.”

“The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.”

“If Jupe had been properly trained from an early age she would have remonstrated to herself on sound principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact.”

“Sense sends to Imagination before Reason have judged, & Reason sends over to Imagination before decree can be acted.”