A Quote by Sydney Brenner

I think one of the things about creativity is not to be afraid of saying the wrong thing. — © Sydney Brenner
I think one of the things about creativity is not to be afraid of saying the wrong thing.
The inhibitor of creativity isn't potential it's fear. We worry about saying the wrong thing or looking foolish so we govern our imagination.
I'm not a propaganda machine. I tell things how I see them. When I say, for example, that corruption is not the only thing the West should think about when they think about Nigeria, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but that people have the complete wrong focus. There's music, there's art, there's culture.
Fear is a ... it's a weird thing, when you think about it. People are only afraid of other things, they're never afraid of themselves.
You can always hear a director saying, 'Well I don't really know what this piece is saying, so therefore, I reject it.' There are any number of things you can anticipate going wrong, and sometimes they go right. But I think the things you like most are the things that get rejected first. That's just how things work.
Cosmopolitans begin, I think, with a sense of one thing we all certainly share, which is our fallibility. Nobody has reason to be confident that they're right about everything. That's one of the motivations for conversation across differences. It's in my interest to converse with people who are wrong about different things from the ones I'm wrong about!
There's nothing wrong with commercial art. There's nothing wrong with consumer society. There's nothing wrong with advertising. There's nothing wrong with shopping and spending money and being paid. There's nothing wrong with any of these things. These are things we do. I just think it's important to look at them from a different perspective - to see how bizarre and banal these rituals we partake in are. It's just important to think about them, I think, and to carry on. Life is about retrospection, and I think that goes for every facet of life.
And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
I’m sure I am wrong about many things, although I’m not sure exactly which things I’m wrong about. I’m even sure I’m wrong about what I think I’m right about in at least some cases.
'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'
The biggest thing is you cannot be afraid to miss the game-winning shot. It's not that you want to make it; it's that you're not afraid to miss it. You're not afraid to make a play and it go wrong. You have to have amnesia. You're not afraid to make a play and it go wrong.
Anyone who thinks stuntmen are crazy is dead wrong. These guys are calculating. They rig things, they think about different ways of doing it... they're not afraid.
We tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger.
We can make choices, but we can be vulnerable; we can do the wrong thing, but the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I think it [life] is basically about forgiveness, and not about someone else forgiving you, but you forgiving yourself. I think we all want a lot of that.
I don't like getting myself in hot water. But suddenly I find that every minute I have to stop and think about what I'm saying. I can see what's going to happen. I'm going to have to stop giving interviews because I'm always saying the wrong thing. I don't want that to happen.
I'm not saying you did the wrong thing. I'm not even saying it wasn't something I'd thought of doing, myself. But even if it was the just thing to do, or the fitting thing, it still wasn't the right thing.
Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more that that is letting the moment pass without saying anything. I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back, regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say "I love you." When we should've said "I'm Sorry." When we didn't stand up for ourselves or some one who needed help.
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