Top 75 Walter Isaacson Quotes, Thoughts, & Sayings

“One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.” — Walter Isaacson

“If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look back too much. ” — Walter Isaacson

You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away.” — Walter Isaacson

“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is.” — Walter Isaacson

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.” — Walter Isaacson

“Picasso had a saying – ‘good artists copy, great artists steal’ – and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” — Walter Isaacson

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” — Walter Isaacson

You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Walter Isaacson

“The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter.” — Walter Isaacson

“I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology.” — Walter Isaacson

“You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. — Walter Isaacson

“Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.” — Walter Isaacson

“if you can’t keep him interested, that’s your fault.” — Walter Isaacson

“Vision without execution is hallucination. .. Skill without imagination is barren.” — Walter Isaacson

“There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that’s the truth” — Walter Isaacson

“To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.” — Walter Isaacson

“Above all, Leonardo’s relentless curiosity and experimentation should remind us of the importance of instilling.” — Walter Isaacson

“Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.” — Walter Isaacson

“reality has an odd habit of catching up with satire.” — Walter Isaacson

“If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.” — Walter Isaacson

“He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you.” — Walter Isaacson

“Leonardo had almost no schooling and could barely read Latin or do long division.” — Walter Isaacson

“But I did learn from Leonardo how a desire to marvel about the world that we encounter each day can make each moment of our lives richer.” — Walter Isaacson

“The best and most innovative products don’t always win…(it’s an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked.” — Walter Isaacson

“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.” — Walter Isaacson

“never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.” — Walter Isaacson

“I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty,” he said, “at least for me.” — Walter Isaacson

“When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him.” — Walter Isaacson

“One of Job’s business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. ” — Walter Isaacson

“Politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.” — Walter Isaacson

“I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. ” — Walter Isaacson

“In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important.” — Walter Isaacson

“I believe that the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and to make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality,” — Walter Isaacson

“Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. ” — Walter Isaacson

“Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” — Walter Isaacson

“It takes a lot of hard work,” he said, “to make something simple.” — Walter Isaacson

“The main thing in our design is that we have to make things intuitively obvious.” — Walter Isaacson

“Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.’ ” — Walter Isaacson

“The goal was never to beat the competition or to make a lot of money. It was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater.” — Walter Isaacson

“One mark of a great mind is the willingness to change it. We can see that in Leonardo.” — Walter Isaacson

“I don’t have any skeletons in my closet that can’t be allowed out.” — Walter Isaacson

“Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his colleagues.” — Walter Isaacson

“When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don’t matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off.” — Walter Isaacson

“It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,” he told Dukas. “I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” — Walter Isaacson

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” — Walter Isaacson

“Everything you’ve ever done in your life is shit,” Jobs said, “so why don’t you come work for me?” — Walter Isaacson

“You always have to keep pushing to innovate.” — Walter Isaacson

“he was more comfortable exploring practical thoughts and real-life situations than metaphysical abstractions or deductive proofs.” — Walter Isaacson

“For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” — Walter Isaacson