From his Commencement Address at Stanford University in 2005:
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. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
The whole speech is well worth your time:
My own feelings for Steve Jobs were best captured by a Facebook friend in Australia, Preston de Guise, who wrote this morning:
I remember reading once (I can’t find the exact quote), during the height of the Microsoft/Apple ‘wars’, Jobs was always the more dangerous compared to Gates. The person didn’t mean it as a negative towards Jobs, but as a statement towards business-as-usual/status quo beliefs. Paraphrasing, it was said:
Gates is easier to understand. He just wants to own the world.
Jobs wants to change it.
And as a reminder of how powerful that difference was, while the Mormons where fighting against our right to be treated as equal with other humans, Apple made an announcement:
Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.
Rest in peace, Steve.
And thank you. You really did think differently.
