"When I was 17 I read a quote that went something
like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most
certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the
past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself,
"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about
to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many
days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead
soon is the most important thing 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." -Steve Jobs
"Whenever you do any one thing intensely over a period of time you have to
give up other lives you could be living. You have to have a real single-minded
kind of tunnel vision if you want to get anything significant accomplished.
Especially if the desire is not to be a businessman, but to be a creative
person." -Steve Jobs
"Creativity is just connecting
things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little
guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed
obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect
experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were
able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more
about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a
commodity. 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." -Steve Jobs
"Whenever you do any one thing intensely over a period of time you have to give up other lives you could be living. You have to have a real single-minded kind of tunnel vision if you want to get anything significant accomplished. Especially if the desire is not to be a businessman, but to be a creative person." -Steve Jobs
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. 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." -Steve Jobs
"What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man's safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what is another's and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough." -Seneca
“Complex systems don't have causes. There are just patterns and at any point one's state of health can move randomly onto a new path. It is not the particular path that one should think about. You move over an ensemble of possible paths, conditional on how you live and the choices you make. All you can do is to try to influence the distribution of possibilities. You can never set the particular path or outcome that will be yours from this time forward. If you think you can look back and see some cause of events, you are probably suffering hindsight bias or what I call complexity blindness.
Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he is widely recognized as a charismatic and design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields, transforming "one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies." Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, a year later, the Macintosh. He also played a role in introducing the LaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser printers, to the market. Jobs received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries. He has been referred to as "legendary", a "futurist" and a "visionary", and has been described as the "Father of the Digital Revolution," a "master of innovation," "the master evangelist of the digital age" and a "design perfectionist."
