Echoes

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Old age, which is dreaded by all men, is to me the sweetest and most pleasant period of my life.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your 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 you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

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.

A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.

Age appears to be best in four things: old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning.... All their mistakes are due to excess and vehemence and their neglect of the maxim of Chilon. They overdo everything; they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else. And they think they know everything, and confidently affirm it, and this is the cause of their excess in everything.

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

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

While I breathe, I hope.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.

Be thou never without something to do; be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or doing something that is useful to the community.

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

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.

Hope is the dream of a waking man.

The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.

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

The person who has lived the most is not the one who has lived the longest, but the one with the richest experiences.

The sun is new each day.