I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's a moment where Jobs says that one day you will wake up and realize that the world was created by people no smarter than you. I want people to believe that; we're so often bound by obstructions and judges.
I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.
As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what's going on, you're very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you're guaranteed to fail.
I have a very big phone book and a very long reach around the world. And I think - I don't think, I know - that 95 percent of the people who I know who weren't born into success who have become successful and done things that are different and made a lot of money and had a lot of excitement in their life are people who never hear the word 'no.'
If somebody had told me when I was in graduate school, 'Brian, in 35 years you'll get a chance to fly the first commercial spacecraft with no computers,' I'd have said, 'I don't think so. People are not going to be that stupid.'
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.
People are always neglecting something they can do in trying to do something they can't do.
Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.
You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else.