Steve Jobs Quotes

I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year.... It's very character-building. 

Steve Jobs, Apple Confidential 2.0

Every good product I've ever seen is because a group of people cared deeply about making something wonderful that they and their friends wanted. They wanted to use it themselves. 

Steve Jobs, Apple WWDC Closing Keynote, 1997

I don't think it's good that we're perceived as different I think it's important we're perceived as MUCH BETTER. If being different is essential to doing that, then we have to do that, but if we could be much better without being different, that'd be fine with me. I want to be much better! I don't care about being different, but we'll have to be different in some ways to be much better. 

Steve Jobs, Apple WWDC Closing Keynote, 1997

I'm sure a lot of you had this experience when you're changing. You're growing as a person and people tend to treat you like you were 18 months ago, and it's really frustrating sometimes when you're growing up and you're more capable. It's the same thing with a company and the press. The press is going to have a lag time. The best thing we can do about the press is embrace them and do the best thing we can to educate them about our strategy. But to keep our eye on the prize, that is turning out some great products. the press and the stock prize will take care of themselves. 

Steve Jobs, Apple WWDC Closing Keynote, 1997

The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No." And when you say "No," you piss off people. 

Steve Jobs, Apple WWDC Closing Keynote, 1997

I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do.

Steve Jobs, Business Week

Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.

Steve Jobs, Business Week

I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. 

Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004

It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. 

Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek Online, Oct. 12, 2004

It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. 

Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek, May 25 1998

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it. 

Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998

Insanely Great! 

Steve Jobs, His description for the Macintosh Computer

I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. 

Steve Jobs, Interview, 1995

It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy. 

Steve Jobs, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple

It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing. 

Steve Jobs, Playboy, February 1985

I feel like somebody just punched me in the stomach and knocked all my wind out. I'm only 30 years old and I want to have a chance to continue creating things. I know I've got at least one more great computer in me. And Apple is not going to give me a chance to do that. 

Steve Jobs, Playboy, September 1987

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, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

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. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

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. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

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. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

You've got to find what you love and that is as true for work as it is for lovers. 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 what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you've found it. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

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 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. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. 

Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement address, June 12, 2005

Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world? 

Steve Jobs, The line he used to lure John Sculley as Apple's CEO

A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets. 

Steve Jobs

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

Steve Jobs

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Steve Jobs

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 -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. 

Steve Jobs

I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better. 

Steve Jobs

In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. 

Steve Jobs

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. 

Steve Jobs

So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.' 

Steve Jobs

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. 

Steve Jobs

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay. 

Steve Jobs

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. 

Steve Jobs