10 inspirational Steve Jobs quotes

By Surbhi Chawla | Updated: 5 October 2012 11:41 IST

Steve Jobs was always described as an innovator, a visionary; and rightly so. He dropped out of college at the age of 21 and started Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak from his parents' garage.

Apple's first product was not a runaway success but Apple II helped the company in getting noticed. Steve Jobs became a multimillionaire by the time he turned 25. He also graced the cover of Time magazine at 26.

In a surprise turn of events, Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1984 when he was 30. He did not waste too much time sulking about being unemployed and went on to establish NeXT computers. In 1986, Steve Jobs bought the computer graphics arm of Lucasfilm, Ltd., and this company is knows today as Pixar Animation Studios.

In the meantime, Apple struggled to keep pace with the changing times and decided to bring back Jobs in 1996 by buying NeXT. Steve Jobs returned as the CEO of Apple in 1997 and took the company to unprecedented heights.

Over the years, many people have looked up to Steve Jobs as a source of inspiration and on his first death anniversary, we complied the ten best inspirational quotes by the man himself.

1. At an Apple product event for the first Macintosh computer on January 24, 1984: "We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me, too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream."

2. In Playboy magazine in February 1985: "If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and throw them away."

3. At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, May 1997: "I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things."

4. Talking about work at the Stanford University's Commencement address on June 12, 2005: "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."

5. Talking about him being fired from Apple at the Stanford University's Commencement Speech 2005: "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that 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, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.[...] It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith."

6. Steve Jobs gave an interview in "60 minutes" in 2003 in which he shared that his business model was inspired by The Beatles: "My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people."

7. In an interview to BusinesWeek in 1998: "That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains."

8. In a statement to The New York Times, 2003: "[Design is] not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

9. On being the richest man in an interview to The Wall Street Journal in 1993 "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."

10. Talking about Death at the Stanford University commencement speech, June 2005: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ... Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

Also Read: Remembering Steve Jobs: "You've got to find what you love"

Steve Jobs life in pictures

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Further reading: Apple, Stay foolish, Stay hungry, Steve Jobs

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