Co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, once said “We’re here to put a dent in the universe.” And that he did.
Jobs, 56, died Wednesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Jobs co-founded the computer, media and electronics giant with Steve Wozniak in 1976 but left eight years later, returning in 1996 to reinvigorate Apple and bring about a string of successful innovations, including the iMac personal computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. His health a matter of public concern for years, Jobs underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004. After leaves of absence for medical reasons in 2009 — during which he received a liver transplant — and earlier this year, Jobs officially resigned on August 24, stating in a letter at the time that he could “no longer meet [his] duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO.”
While being Mr. iPod, iPhone and iPad, he was also a man of words.
Here are 10 of Jobs’ most inspirational quotes:
1. “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
2. That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
3. “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”
4. “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.”
5. “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. 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.”
6.”My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”
7. “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. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. … Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
8. “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. And 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. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
9. “Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas…I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”
10. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
