Echoes

One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there. And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands, you never hear their story or tell yours, but somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

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

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

I believe people work for satisfaction.

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

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.

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

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.

Inspiration is a guest that does not always answer the first invitation. Meanwhile we must work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it halfway, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their despondency.

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.

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

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

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

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.

The best of artists has no conception that a single block of marble does not contain within itself, beneath its surface; only the hand that obeys the intellect can reach it.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

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.

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.

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

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.

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present — I am rising to the work of a human being.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

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

All men by nature desire to know.