Skip to content

Portrait of Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson

(1950–2020) Education Expert

170 quotes in 814 categories

Ken Robinson reminds us that the way we think decides if something feels good or bad. He says creativity isn’t a nice‑to‑have skill; it’s a tool for staying safe and happy when jobs change. He also points out that schools put math and language on top, pushing the arts down to the bottom.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Ken Robinson was an education expert, best known for Out of Our Minds.

Quick Facts About Ken Robinson

Born: March 4, 1950
Died: August 21, 2020
Profession: Education Expert
Notable works: Out of Our Minds

About Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson was a UK writer who lived from 1950 to 2020.

Quotes by Ken Robinson

Creativity is as important as literacy

Creativity

Image

All of our existing ideas have creative possibilities.

Creative

Image

Imagination is the primary gift of human consciousness.

Consciousness

Image

To be creative you actually have to do something.

Image

Humans are born curious, creative, and intuitive.

Birth

Image

Imagination is the source of all human achievement.

Achievement

Image

Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

Achievement

Image

Creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence.

Creativity

Image

It’s education that’s meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp.

Education

Image

The gardener does not make a plant grow. The job of a gardener is to create optimal conditions for growth

Image

Change what you are doing; change your world. And if enough people do that, we can change the world.

Change

Image

Sometimes getting away from school is the best thing that can happen to a great mind.

Best things

Image

Creativity involves putting your imagination to work. In a sense, creativity is applied imagination.

Creativity

Image

Too many people never connect with their true talents and therefore don't know what they are capable of achieving.

Image

Most great learning happens in groups. Collaboration is the stuff of growth.

Collaboration

Image

If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?

Forests

Image

Everyone has huge creative capacities. The challenge is to develop them. A culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a…

Image

Finding the medium that excites your imagination, that you love to play with and work in, is an important step to freeing…

Creative

Image

We have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education, and it's impoverishing our spirit and our energies as much as…

Body

Image

Teaching is a creative profession, not a delivery system. Great teachers do [pass on information], but what great teachers also do is…

Creative

Image

Up to a point you welcome being interrupted because it is only by interacting with other people that you get anything interesting…

Image

If you sit kids down, hour after hour, doing low-grade clerical work, don't be surprised if they start to fidget. Children are…

After hours

Image

“If he’d believed at any point along this journey that he had to follow a straight path in his career, he never…

Straight path

Image

Helping people to connect with their personal creative capacities is the surest way to release the best they have to offer.

Image

You were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid — things you liked — on the…

Advice

Image

One way of opening ourselves up to new opportunities is to make conscious efforts to look differently at our ordinary situations. Doing…

Advantage

Image

“Dan Baker agrees: “The myth that money brings you happiness is one of the happiness traps,” he says. In a study of…

Happiness

Image

To improve our schools, we have to humanize them and make education personal to every student and teacher in the system. Education…

Administrators

Image

The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The…

Achievement

Image

“What Einstein seemed to understand is that intellectual growth and creativity come through embracing the dynamic nature of intelligence. Growth comes through…

Creativity

Image

To improve our schools, we have to humanize them and make education personal to every student and teacher in the system. Education…

Administrators

Image

“One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when…

Confidence

Image

“[Lemaire] has been working on the thirteenth-root challenge for a number of years. Previously, his best time had been a sluggish 77…

Artificial intelligence

Image

“Public schools were not only created in the interests of industrialism—they were created in the image of industrialism. In many ways, they…

Assembly line

Image

“I asked a professor of nanotechnology what they use to measure the unthinkable small distances of nanospace? He said it was the…

Image

People over the age of thirty were born before the digital revolution really started. We've learned to use digital technology-laptops, cameras, personal…

Adults

Image

“Robert Sternberg is a professor of psychology at Tufts University and a past president of the American Psychological Association. He is a…

Image

“THE ARTS The arts are about the qualities of human experiences. Through music, dance, visual arts, drama, and the rest, we give…

Art

Image

“In Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness, Susan Smalley and Diana Winston argue that, “Learning to live mindfully does…

Art

Image

It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned…

Image

Ken Robinson by topic

Creativity (52) Education (43) Creative (23) Life (20) School (14) People (14) Motivational (14) Humans (14) Children (14) Thinking (13) Passion (13) Imagination (13) Inspirational (12) Time (11) Art (11) Success (10) Ideas (10)