Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

The line links creativity to a psychological and ethical risk: to create is to step beyond what feels settled, safe, or already “known.” “Certainties” suggests not only factual beliefs but also fixed identities, habits, and social conventions that provide security. Fromm’s broader humanistic psychoanalytic outlook often contrasts modes of living rooted in fear and conformity with those grounded in freedom, spontaneity, and productive activity. Read in that light, the quote argues that originality is less a technical skill than a character capacity—tolerating ambiguity, relinquishing control, and accepting the possibility of error or disapproval in order to discover something new.