Steve Jobs Quotes: Wisdom from a Visionary
Steve Jobs had a gift for expressing complex ideas in memorable ways. These quotes reveal his philosophy on work, life, and innovation.
On Innovation
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
"It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple."
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
On Finding Your Passion
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle."
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work."
"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."
On Life and Death
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life."
"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share."
"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."
On Failure and Perseverance
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."
"I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. It's very character-building."
On Thinking Differently
"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently."
"Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?"
"It's better to be a pirate than join the navy."
On Focus
"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas."
"Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do."
The Stanford Commencement Speech (2005)
Jobs' most famous speech included three stories:
1. Connecting the dots:
"You 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."
2. Love and loss:
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith."
3. Death:
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
On Customers
"You've got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology—not the other way around."
"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."