Steve Jobs was one of the best innovators of our time and has been likened to a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci. He has left a legacy in Apple and the products he created that allow us to connect and communicate in a way we never did before. Regardless of where you stand in life, what career you have, or your zip code, here is a collection of quotes and life lessons from Steve Jobs to help you be your best self.
Excellence. “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.” [Fortune]
Courage. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford Commencement Address, June 2005]
Teamwork. “My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other’s negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.” [CNET TV]
Don’t quit. “The problem with the Internet startup craze isn’t that too many people are starting companies; it’s that too many people aren’t sticking with it. That’s somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That’s when you find out who you are and what your values are.
“So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.” [Fortune, Jan. 24, 2000]
Foresight. “There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.” - [blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com, 2007]
Importance. “Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” [Wired, February 1996]
Trust. “[Y]ou can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” [Stanford Commencement Address, June 2005]
Experience. “A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” [Wired, February 1996]
Innovation. “The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.” [Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer Inc., May 1999]
Give it your best. “When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]
Leadership. “I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.” [CNNMoney]
Contribution. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” [The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 1993]
What have you learned from Steve Jobs?
i still cnat not believe that steve jobs is gone but we all know that he is still between us and we can not forget the fact that he was one of teh most important people for the industry of the bussiness he created apple and many other stuff techomoly is his thing and we all know that he was an incredible human being i am here because i am going to do a project about steve jobs and i wnated to know more infromation about him and thanks to this page i think i got a lot information that would be useful for my project we will miss steve jobs. luisa fernanda
Thanks for sharing, Luisa. It’s sad to see someone with so many ideas left in him pass away so young. That said, he certainly left a legacy that will live on for decades to come.