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Who really said it

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep

Not Douglas Adams — actually Scott Adams Scott Adams 1957–2026 · American cartoonist, creator of Dilbert
Disputed In copyright

Scott Adams — the Dilbert cartoonist, no relation to the Hitchhiker’s Guide author — wrote the line in The Dilbert Principle (HarperBusiness, 1996), introducing it in the book’s final chapter with the words “I have a saying.” Quote Investigator verified it on paper at quote page 324 ↗, and traced the Douglas Adams credit to a single reporter’s surname mix-up in 2013.

Last verified 9 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep” Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle (New York: HarperBusiness, 1996), p. 324. Frequently misattributed to Douglas Adams. Verified via quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Douglas Adams. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Scott Adams and HarperCollins Publishers (HarperBusiness)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Scott Adams — American cartoonist and author, creator of Dilbert. Theme: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The Dilbert Principle, final chapter

Work
The Dilbert Principle
Published
1996 · HarperBusiness, New York
Location
Quote page 324, in the book’s final chapter
Author
Scott Adams (1957–2026)

Finally—and this is the last time I’m going to say it—we’re all idiots and we’re going to make mistakes. That’s not necessarily bad. I have a saying: “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

Keep your people fresh, happy, and efficient. Set a target, then get out of the way. Let art happen. Sometimes idiots can accomplish wonderful things. The Dilbert Principle (1996), p. 324

As transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from the printed 1996 HarperBusiness edition, quote page 324, which it records as verified on paper.

Quote Investigator: the 1996 Dilbert Principle citation

How we verified this

In copyright

The sentence first appeared in The Dilbert Principle, published by HarperBusiness in 1996 — far later than the 1931 threshold below which US works have entered the public domain — so it remains under copyright. The short excerpt above is reproduced here for identification and commentary.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Who else gets the credit

Most quotation sites do get this one right and file it under Scott Adams. But three other names are attached to it, and one of them has a precisely datable origin.

Douglas Adams Wrong Adams

A Fast Company profile of Ricky Gervais by Drake Baer, published 15 July 2013, introduced the line as coming from “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams ↗.” Douglas Adams had died in 2001, and the words appear in none of his work. Quote Investigator attributes the error to the shared surname.

Ricky Gervais Repeater, not originator

Gervais used the line in an article for Wired UK on 5 October 2011, writing “In fact Scott Adams said… ↗” He named the right man; the credit was lost downstream of him, not by him.

Adam Grant Aggregator error

A Goodreads quotation page ↗ files the line under Adam Grant and his book Originals. Goodreads labels such entries as added by its community and not verified by the site.

Scott Adams wrote it, in the final chapter of The Dilbert Principle (1996), quote page 324 ↗, and presented it as his own saying.

Context

How one surname moved a quote

The line closes a chapter of jokes with a piece of advice Adams evidently meant. Having spent The Dilbert Principle arguing that the least competent people get promoted, he ends by conceding the obvious — “we’re all idiots and we’re going to make mistakes” — and then reframes that as the working condition of anyone who makes things. The aphorism is the reframe.

What moved it was not a forger but a footnote. Ricky Gervais quoted the line in Wired UK in October 2011 and credited Scott Adams by name. When Gervais made the same point to a Fast Company reporter two years later, the credit arrived as “Adams” and left as the wrong one: the piece introduced it as coming from “another sagastic, jesterly Brit,” the Hitchhiker’s Guide author. A cartoonist from California became an English novelist in the space of a clause.

“I have a saying” — the four words that settle the question.

Why the swap was so easy to make

Douglas Adams is one of the internet’s strongest attractors for clever, warm, slightly rueful lines — the tone of this one fits him well enough that nobody stopped to check. He also happens to share a surname with a writer who published aphorisms about creative work in the same decade.

Notably, the correct credit largely held: most quotation sites still carry the line under Scott Adams. The Douglas Adams version is a real and traceable stream rather than the dominant one — which is unusual, and worth saying plainly instead of overstating the confusion.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Failure Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full investigationquoteinvestigator.com

Traces the saying to Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle (1996), quote page 324, verified on paper, and documents the Douglas Adams mix-up.
Wikiquote: Scott Adamsen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under The Dilbert Principle (1996), keeping Adams’s “I have a saying” introduction.
Fast Company, July 2013 (archived)web.archive.org

The misattribution at its source: Drake Baer’s Gervais profile assigns the words to Douglas Adams.
Wired UK, October 2011 (archived)web.archive.org

Ricky Gervais quoting the line two years earlier and crediting Scott Adams correctly.
The Dilbert Principle (1996) scanarchive.org

A digitised copy of the 1996 edition, available to borrow through the Internet Archive’s lending library.
Wikipedia: The Dilbert Principleen.wikipedia.org

Background on the 1996 HarperBusiness book and the management idea it names.

The other Adams

Who actually wrote it

Scott Adams

1957–2026 · American cartoonist and author, creator of Dilbert

Scott Raymond Adams (8 June 1957 – 13 January 2026) was an American cartoonist and satirist, best known for Dilbert, the comic strip about cubicle life he launched in 1989. The Dilbert Principle (1996) was his first business book — a bestseller that spent months on the New York Times list — and it carried the strip’s satire of management into prose. The creativity line sits in its closing chapter, the one place in the book where Adams drops the joke voice and offers advice he actually means; he prefaces it with “I have a saying”, which is about as clear an authorship claim as a quotation ever comes with.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions (New York: HarperBusiness, 1996), 324.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep’?” Last verified 9 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/creativity-is-allowing-yourself-to-make-mistakes-art-is/

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