Steve Jobs Quotes

181 Sourced Quotes

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.
On the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft

Steve Jobs
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.

Steve Jobs
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Steve Jobs
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. 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. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

Steve Jobs
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

Steve Jobs
Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn.

Steve Jobs
I think right now it's a battle for the mindshare of developers and for the mindshare of customers, and right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle.

Steve Jobs
People think it's this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Steve Jobs
I wanted to meet my biological mother mostly to see if she was OK and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me.

Steve Jobs
So [Polaroid's Dr. Edwin] Land, at 75, went off to spend the remainder of his life doing pure science, trying to crack the code of color vision. The man is a national treasure. I don't understand why people like that can't be held up as models: This is the most incredible thing to be — not an astronaut, not a football player — but this.

Steve Jobs
But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business.

Steve Jobs
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Steve Jobs
For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

Steve Jobs
My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products; the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything.

Steve Jobs
If I knew in 1986 how much it was going to cost to keep Pixar going, I doubt if I would have bought the company.

Steve Jobs
We want to reinvent the phone. What's the killer app? The killer app is making calls! It's amazing how hard it is to make calls on most phones. We want to let you use contacts like never before - sync your iPhone with your PC or mac.

Steve Jobs
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.

Steve Jobs
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.

Steve Jobs
We believe it's the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago.

Steve Jobs
We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model so that the user isn't forced to be the systems integrator.

Steve Jobs
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 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. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.

Steve Jobs
Now, I have something to tell you today. Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life — for the past five years. There have been rumors to this effect... but this is Apple's campus in Cupertino — let's zoom in on it — in that building right there... we've had teams doing the "just-in-case" scenario; and our rules have been that our designs for OS X must be processor independent, and that every project must be built for both the Power PC and Intel processors. And so today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of OS X has been compiled for both Power PC and Intel — this has been going on for the last five years. Just in case.

Steve Jobs
There's no other company that could make a MacBook Air and the reason is that not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system. And it is the intimate interaction between the operating system and the hardware that allows us to do that. There is no intimate interaction between Windows and a Dell notebook.

Steve Jobs
I make 50 cents for showing up … and the other 50 cents is based on my performance.

Steve Jobs
You've probably had somebody punch you in the stomach and it knocks the wind of you and you can't breathe. That's how I felt.

Steve Jobs