Echoes

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

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

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

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.

The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Creativity is just connecting things. 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. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people... Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. 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 and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.

How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Liberty is never out of bounds or off limits; it spreads wherever it can capture the imagination of men.

Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for man to go.

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.