Steve Jobs Quotes, Status, and Thoughts

I sat in a garage and invented the future.

A-plus players like to work together and they don't like it if you tolerate B work.

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

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.

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

It's very simple: The more successful you are, the more you'll earn. But if you're not successful, you will not earn a dime.

I would rather gamble on our vision than make a 'me, too' product.

It is hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300-plus people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans.

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

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex.

We've got to make the small things unforgettable.

Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions.

Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?

One of my beliefs very strongly is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press.

You have to have a lot of passion for what you do... because if you don't, any rational person would give up.

Manage the top line: your strategy, your people, and your products, and the bottom line will follow.

You're already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

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.

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works.

That's my job - to make sure everything is great.

Love what you do...Don't settle

I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and you couldn't replace one of these people with fifty average people.

The real art is knowing what to leave out, not what to put in.

There’s a phrase in Buddhism, ‘Beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind.

It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want.

You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology - not the other way around.

If you live each day as it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right

I'm one of those people that think Thomas Edison and the light bulb changed the world more than Karl Marx ever did.

Older people sit down and ask, 'What is it?' but the boy asks, 'What can I do with it?'.

A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.

You can tell a lot about a person by who his or her heroes are.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum and we can do anything we want.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life... so love what you do. Your time is limited. Don't waste it.

If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.

In the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you.

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.

Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves

You can't look at the competition and say you're going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you're going to do it differently.

Whatever you do, you must never let the voice in your head control the brain in your heart.

The best way to create value in the 21st century is to connect Creativity with Technology

If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

If you're afraid of failing you won't get very far

It's not the consumers' job to figure out what they want

Life is about creating and living experiences that are worth sharing.

If you don't have a passion, you'll give up.

You should never go to a meeting or make a telephone call without a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.

Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

Details matter, it's worth waiting to get it right.

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.

The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work

Each dream you leave behind is a part of your future that will no longer exist.

Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.

Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact — everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.

Overnight success stories take a long time.

Without passion, any rational person would give up!

You go to your TV to turn your brain off. You go to the computer when you want to turn your brain on.

A brand is simply trust.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

The most powerful person in the world is the story teller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.

Follow your heart, but check it with your head.

Let's go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.

Innovation is the only way to win.

You are all over the map, figure out the top 5 things you want to focus on and get rid of the rest.

Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect.

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

Focusing is about saying No.

We limit how much technology our kids use at home.

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

Do your best at every job. Don't sleep! Success generates more success so be hungry for it. Hire good people with a passion for excellence.

My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.

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.

You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the tools to let people become their best.

Your time on this earth is limited, don’t live someone else's life, live by your vision.

[In school] I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.

If you want to hire great people and have them stay, you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win.

Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experiences. But if you have the same experiences as everyone else, you are unlikely to look in a different direction.

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

I began to realize that an intuitive understanding and consciousness was more significant than abstract thinking and intellectual logical analysis. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That's had a big impact on my work.

Strategy is figuring out what not to do.

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

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.

Everything is based on a simple rule: Quality is the best business plan, period.

To go forward you have to leave something behind

Customers don't measure you on how hard you tried, they measure you on what you deliver.

the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Focus and simplicity...once you get there, you can move mountains.

Don't just live a life; build one.

Learn continually - there's always "one more thing" to learn!

We're here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why even be here? We're creating a completely new consciousness, like an artist or a poet. That’s how you have to think of this. We're rewriting the history of human thought with what we're doing.

The most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do.

It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple.

Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat

If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.

Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

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 others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Great things in business are never done by one person, they're done by a team of people.

It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.

Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.