Here are the top 25 quotes by Steve Jobs, an American icon and legend responsible for redefining several fields in his lifetime.
Jobs is the creator of Macintosh and founder of Apple. After an exile for several years, Jobs regained his magic at Apple leading to the introduction of several pathbreaking products – iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Jobs took the art of product design to the stratosphere and redefined the phrase customer experience. Simplicity, elegance, and ease of use were the hallmarks of most Apple product.
Under Jobs stewardship, Apple rose like a phoenix and emerged as a trendsetter and prime mover in more than one industry.
In addition, Jobs also acquired and built Pixar into a giant animation powerhouse and later sold it to Disney.
A true visionary and a perfectionist in his work life, he is also a man of several personal flaws.
Steve Jobs top quotes will not only inspire you but also motivate you to follow his lead and live a singular life in pursuit of your passions. Jobs’ famous quotes reflect his iconoclastic personality and a can-do spirit.
Steve Jobs Top Quotes: Sayings by Jobs that inspire and motivate
- “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Read a Wisdom Story about this Steve Jobs quote.
- “I want to put a ding in the universe.”
- “One more thing…”
- “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
- “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
- “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.”
- “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Read a Wisdom Story about this quote.
- “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
- “Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack.”
- “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
- “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
- “When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
- “I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.”
- “I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.”
- “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”
- “Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.”
- “The most precious thing that we all have with us is time.”
- “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.”
- “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
- “I think death is the most wonderful invention of life. It purges the system of these old models that are obsolete.”
- “People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up.”
- “If you act like you can do something, then it will work.”
- “There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very, very beginning.”
- “Don’t get hung up on who owns the idea. Pick the best one, and let’s go.”
Which one of these is your favorite quote by Steve Jobs? Did we miss any quotation by Jobs that belongs in the top 25?
While following in the footsteps of an icon and iconoclast is not easy, we can certainly be inspired by Steve Jobs quotes and aspire to do better.
Onwards and upwards.