Echoes

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

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

The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

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

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write.

Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

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

Everything changes; nothing perishes.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

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.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality.

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend.

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.

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

Life is a journey, not a destination.

It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

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

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.