Walter Isaacson Quotations

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.

Terrorism is a horrible thing that is the great threat to civilization on our planet.

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved.

You know, one of these things that happened in the '60s and '70s was this confluence of, sort of, a counter-culture with computer culture.

When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human.

I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.

I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding.

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.

Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it's the reward for being a seeker in this world

I wonder now how tough you have to be to get big things done.

What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box.

More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businessperson on the other.

And if you don't have your ears open, you're not going to be able to figure out what you should be doing.

Polite and velvety leaders, who take care to avoid bruising others, are generally not as effective at forcing change.

He said, 'From then on, I realized that I was not just abandoned. I was chosen. I was special.' And I think that's the key to understanding Steve Jobs.

I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism.

I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental processing power - I've watched him use four different screens, process information, get to the right answer, boom boom boom.

Yeah, I think that his great creation was not any one product but a company in which creativity was connected to great engineering. And that will survive at least while the current people who trained under Steve are there.

I do think it's important, if you're going to be very creative, to be a seeker.

I have a strong emotional respect for Steve.

I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong

We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters

I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.

For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence.

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of the quarter-hour ratings.

I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup in our parents' garage and try to create a business

I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant

I've asked Jobs why he didn't get an operation then and he said, 'I didn't want my body to be opened. I didn't want to be violated in that way.'

I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value.

I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news.

One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters

But the point is to get a whole new generation of people and people in general more re-engaged in news, and this has happened a lot since September 11th of course.

I think when you're looking for people to interview, you want to make it fair and honest. You're not just bringing people on so you can beat them up or, you know, make fools out of them or something

In the age of the internet when everybody's a pundit, we're still gonna need somebody there to go talk to the colonels, to be on the ground in Baghdad and stuff and that's very expensive

Jobs has within him sort of this conflict, but he doesn't quite see it as a conflict between being hippie-ish and anti-materialistic but wanting to sell things like Wozniak's board. Wanting to create a business.

Steve Jobs was never going to let Flash on any Apple product again like that after in 1997 - he's got a long memory - they said no and Bill Gates said yes.

We are in a situation with the huge stimulus package that's going to be spent all across this nation and a big financial crisis and banking crisis. And what we need is good, trained journalists who can play the role of watchdog.

You can't have a sustainable US economy without a great education system. Teach students to do the job right. You don't have an innovative economy unless you have a great education.

With the participation of a wide range of policymakers -- from Margaret Thatcher to Jimmy Carter to Condoleezza Rice -- it has helped lay the groundwork for new approaches to national and world issues,

There is a whole group of young people now with attitude and sharpness that comes from a Bart Simpson approach to life. The Mickey Mouse Club is not in business. Mickey Mouse was wonderful but Bart Simpson rules today.

Louisiana lost its credibility by asking for everything. Now it is our job to say, we have some reasonable priorities for spending and we are going to be sensible and frugal about it.

Look out your window, and what do you see? Le Corbusier, not Wright.

Mrs. Graham was an important and remarkable person in our profession and all of us lucky enough to know her are deeply saddened by her untimely death.

He had a learning experience. It's the most amazing thing for somebody of his stature. It's because by himself, he walked around. He walked around and talked to people.

I think it's important for CNN to get out as much as possible from the Washington-New York axis, ... This is not some big strategic shift to New York.

I think we're trying as much as possible to be part of the heart and soul of Aspen,

I think this problem could be solved in 20 minutes. It's low-hanging fruit and not that expensive.

I think the McCain and Lieberman talk about the need for civility in public discourse is right at the core of our mission,

Spielberg made movies the way they are today. Our list is aimed at naming the people who influenced the way we live today, not the best but the most influential.

we were looking for influence and why we have to suffer through 'Godzilla.'

We'd love to have conversations if Ted Koppel wanted to, and could,

faithful to its core mission of being the most authoritative and credible source of information in the world, emphasizing hard journalistic reporting more than opinion shows.

consummate journalist who brings a wealth of experience and expertise to our network.

Especially right after 9/11. Especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on. There was a real sense that you don't get that critical of a government that's leading us in war time.

an exciting new prospect for what I want to do with the next phase of my life.

It's a valid analysis and Lou's trusted to give that analysis.

It was elitism, sort of a condescending elitism that looked down on Franklin for having basic middle class values.

It's like when FEMA wasn't really that creative, and the water was rising and people were stranded, ... Once again, people are being stranded and businesses are starting to die.

I've heard the rumor on and off for a month or two. Most rumors like this have some basis for truth, but not this one. How about ambassador to Barbados ? you can float my name for that job, if you want.

I'll be in Philadelphia. They are throwing a huge party for him. Hundreds and hundreds of people are coming.

The last two weeks have been more than encouraging. They've been awesome. There's more money, and most importantly, there's a plan.

He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his life in my hands. So that made me do something I didn't think I could do.... If you trust him, you can do things. If he's decided that something should happen, then he's just going to make it happen. (Elizabeth Holmes)

Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, 'It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.

You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last. Excerpt From: Walter, Isaacson. “Steve Jobs.” Simon & Schuster, 2011-10-23T21:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe," Joanna Hoffman said. "It's a common trait in people who are charismatic and know how to manipulate people. Knowing that he can crush you makes you feel weakened and eager for his approval, so then he can elevate you and put you on a pedestal and own you.

...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.

I used to be an angry man myself. I’m a recovering assaholic so I could recognize that in Steve. (quoting Jean-Louis Gassée)

On Startups: "I hate it when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on.

i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.

One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

Steve Jobs: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.

Let's crowd source, curate, and add royalties to books

Vision w/o execution is just hallucination. You need the right combination of visionary + team that can execute

Most of the collaborations of technology were done by teams...Collaboration is key to creativity

It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan ...[Showing the misery of Afghanistan ran the risk of] promoting enemy propaganda...we must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harboured the terrorists responsible for killing close up to 5,000 innocent people.

Politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.

Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.

The childhood that Paul and Clara Jobs created for their new son was, in many ways, a stereotype of the late 1950s. When Steve was two they adopted a girl they named Patty, and three years later they moved to a tract house in the suburbs.

A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life.

Good telling of human stories is the best way to keep the Internet and World Wide Web from becoming a waste vastland.

A theme of digital success is keeping it simple.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. “There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him,” Cook said. “That allows him to focus on a few things and say no to many things. Few people are really good at that.

I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age.

I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.

Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his collegues.

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)

On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, "Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?

I am a fruitarian and I will only eat leaves picked by virgins in the moonlight - Steve Jobs

I was on one of my fruitarian diets" Steve Jobs recalled "I had just comeback from the apple farm. It sounded fun, spirited, and not intimidating. Apple took the edge of the word 'computer', plus it would get us a head of Atari in the phone book. He told Wozniak if a better name did not hit them by the next afternoon, they would just stick with apple and they did. 1 Apr 1976

for Steve, less is always more, simpler is always better. Therefore, if you can build a glass box with fewer elements, it’s better, it’s simpler, and it’s at the forefront of technology. That’s where Steve likes to be, in both his products and his stores.

So that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.” Apple’s design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.

The reality distortion field was a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand,

There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth

Steve has a reality distortion field.” When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. “In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he’s not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.

if you can't keep him interested, that's your fault.

Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.