Steve Jobs’ Most Relevant Quotes, You Never Dare To Forget

I have been impressed with Steve Jobs’ last week’s speech on the launch of iPad 2. He came, though seriously ill. He put his passion into the show, despite his energy being exhausted by fighting illness and media speculating about his near death. He shined as always. The lasting standing ovations belonged to his well deserved reward.


I admire Steve Jobs for his leadership qualities. I am not so hard on his people skills gaps as some others may be (people at Apple are said to be at constant fear of losing their job). But Steve still attracts the best employees and he enthuses them to do great work for him. Apple stands for something for them. Apple has a reason for being that isn’t just about making money. Steve is a type of genius, artist, who has made his mark in the history and he could never be so successful without some of his unique personality traits.


What the great leaders do and Steve Jobs masters better than others?

VISION AND PURPOSE

      “Our customers want to know who is Apple and what do we stand for, where do we fit in this world. What we are about is not making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well, we do that better than anybody in some cases. But Apple is something more than that. Apple at the core, it’s core value is, that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.” 1997, Jobs’s speech to employees

“The goal was never to beat the competitors, or to make a lot of money, it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater.”

PASSION  

“I am willing  to tear down walls, build bridges, and light fires. I have great experience, lots of energy, a bit of that “vision thing” and I am not afraid to start from the beginning. “ Steve Jobs’ resume

“Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you are not going to survive. You are going to give up. So you’ve got to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you’re passionate about, otherwise you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick in through. I think that’s half the battle right there.”

COURAGE

“I have always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they are harder. They’re more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.”

 “I looked to my hero Bob Dylan for inspiration. One of the things I admired about Dylan was his refusal to stand still. Many successful artists at some point in their careers atrophy: they keep doing what made them successful in the first place, but they don’t evolve. If they keep risking failure, they are still artists. Dylan and Picasso were always risking failure.”1998 for Fortune magazine

INVENTIVE SPIRIT

“Innovations has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100times 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.” 1998 for Fortune

“Process makes you more efficient. But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.” 2004 for Business Week

PERSEVERANCE & PERFECTIONISM

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

“When you start looking at a problem and think it’s really simple, you don’t understand how complex the problem really is. Once you get into the problem… you see that it’s complicated and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going, find the underlying problem, and come up with an elegant solution that works well on every level.”

DISCIPLINE AND DECISIVENESS

“Everything just got simpler. That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. We’ve got to focus and do things we can be good at”.” 1998 for Business Week

“We look at a lot of things, but I’m as proud of the products that we have not done as I am of the ones we have done.” 1998 for Wall Street Journal

INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER

„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, and that will make all the difference.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 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 others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 2005

„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.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 2005

Once Steve Jobs said: “I want to put a ding in the Universe.” He certainly did.

Do not miss the video on his appearance in March 2011:
Steve Jobs Standing Ovations March 2011


The Beginning of Steve Jobs' Greatness / Video from 1984

Note: When the quote source not mentioned, than appeared in the book "Inside Steve's Brain" by Leander Kahney.

My other blog devoted to Steve Jobs and his mission: 
Steve Jobs Journey Toward Success - Another View