Echoes

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

All men by nature desire to know.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ... Don't stop to marvel.

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

People often say that I'm curious about too many things at once. But can you really forbid a man from harboring a desire to know and embrace everything that surrounds him?

I believe it is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds… to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.

In prosecuting these discoveries, the dangers we are exposed to are obvious, but I rejoice that we are chosen to confront them.

He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.

It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life.

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

He who lives sees much. He who travels sees more.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I had ambition not only to go farther than anyone had done before, but as far as it was possible for man to go.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

The purpose of life...is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement and success have no meaning.