Top 500 Walter Isaacson Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Jobs’s father had once taught him that a drive for perfection meant caring about the craftsmanship even of the parts unseen. Jobs applied that to the layout of the circuit board inside the Apple II. He rejected the initial design because the lines were not straight enough. This.”

— Walter Isaacson

352. “Be open to mystery. Not everything needs sharp lines.”

— Walter Isaacson

353. “La naturaleza adora la sencillez y la unidad.”

— Walter Isaacson

354. “When people take insights from multiple sources and put them together, it’s natural for them to think that the resulting ideas are their own – as.”

— Walter Isaacson

355. “In other words, the future might belong to people who can best partner and collaborate with computers.”

— Walter Isaacson

356. “Her work also illustrates, as Leonardo da Vinci’s did, that the key to innovation is connecting a curiosity about basic science to the practical work of devising tools that can be applied to our lives – moving discoveries from lab bench to bedside.”

— Walter Isaacson

357. “Another assessment, also sometimes endorsed by Jobs, is that what transpired was less a heist by Apple than a fumble by Xerox. “They were copier-heads who had no clue about what a computer could do,” he said of Xerox’s management. “They just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could.”

— Walter Isaacson

358. “Empiece por los detalles.”

— Walter Isaacson

359. “Ingenuity without wisdom is dangerous.”

— Walter Isaacson

360. “Looking back at a century that will be remembered for its willingness to break classical bonds, and looking ahead to an era that seeks to nurture the creativity needed for scientific innovation, one person stands out as a paramount icon of our age: the kindly refugee from oppression whose wild halo of hair, twinkling eyes, engaging humanity, and extraordinary brilliance made his face a symbol and his name a synonym for genius.”

— Walter Isaacson

361. “It was by all accounts a pleasant Atlantic crossing, during which Einstein tried to explain relativity to Weissmann. Asked upon their arrival whether he understood the theory, Weissmann gave a delightful reply. “During the crossing, Einstein explained his theory to me every day, and by the time we arrived I was fully convinced that he really understands it.”

— Walter Isaacson

362. “A looming ethical issue, everyone at the table agrees, is that gene editing could exacerbate, and even encode, inequality in society.”

— Walter Isaacson

363. “That’s why I’m here to kiss the corporate ass. I don’t kiss everybody’s.”

— Walter Isaacson

364. “When I realized that I was smarter than my parents, I felt tremendous shame for having thought that.”

— Walter Isaacson

365. “Baby You’re a Rich Man Before and after he was rich, and indeed throughout a life that included being both broke and a billionaire, Steve Jobs’s attitude toward wealth was complex. He was an antimaterialistic hippie who capitalized on the inventions of a friend who wanted to give them.”

— Walter Isaacson

366. “The spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.”

— Walter Isaacson

367. “Tim Cook came out of procurement, which is just the right background for what we needed. I realized that he and I saw things exactly the same way. I had visited a lot of just-in-time factories in Japan, and I’d built one for the Mac and at NeXT. I knew what I wanted, and I met Tim, and he wanted the same.”

— Walter Isaacson

368. “They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.”

— Walter Isaacson

369. “It was important, his father said, to craft the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden. “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.”

— Walter Isaacson

370. “Steve Jobs was famously stubborn and.”

— Walter Isaacson

371. “Who said your job was to think, spring-wiener?”

— Walter Isaacson

372. “It was Sunday, June 29, 1975, a milestone for the personal computer. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak later said, “anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front of them.”

— Walter Isaacson

373. “Steve created the only lifestyle brand in the tech industry,” Larry Ellison said. “There are cars people are proud to have – Porsche, Ferrari, Prius – because what I drive says something about me. People feel the same way about an Apple product.” Starting.”

— Walter Isaacson

374. “Einstein’s detachment allowed him to affect an air of amusement rather than anxiety. “The whole affair is a matter of indifference to me, as is all the commotion, and the opinion of each and every human being,” he said. “I will live through all that is in store for me like an unconcerned spectator.”

— Walter Isaacson

375. “I had been listening to a lot of Bach. All of a sudden the wheat field was playing Bach. It was the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point. I felt like the conductor of this symphony with Bach coming through the wheat.”

— Walter Isaacson

376. “By 1940 Grace Hopper was bored. She had no children, her marriage was unexciting, and teaching math was not as fulfilling as she had hoped.”

— Walter Isaacson

377. “If your hand is on a stove and it gets hot, you pull it right off, but if it’s someone else’s hand on the stove, it will take you longer to do something.”

— Walter Isaacson

378. “PDP-1 was the first computer to be designed for direct interaction with the user.”

— Walter Isaacson

379. “If you were negative or thought something couldn’t be done, you were not invited to the next meeting,” Mueller recalls. “He just wanted people who would make things happen.” It was a good way to drive people to do what they thought was impossible. But it was also a good way to become surrounded by people afraid to give you bad news or question a decision.”

— Walter Isaacson

380. “The Pepsi Generation campaign, he said, sold not a product but a lifestyle and an optimistic outlook.”

— Walter Isaacson

381. “Put off this sloth,” the master said, “for shame! Sitting on feather-pillows, lying reclined Beneath the blanket is no way to fame – Fame, without which man’s life wastes out of mind, Leaving on earth no more memorial Than foam in water or smoke upon the wind.”

— Walter Isaacson

382. “Neglect is a form of abuse,” she once scrawled on the wall of the hallway to their bedroom. She was entranced by him, but she was also baffled by how uncaring he could be. She would later recall how incredibly painful it was to be in love with someone so self-centered. Caring deeply about someone who seemed incapable of caring was a particular kind of hell that she wouldn’t wish on anyone, she said.”

— Walter Isaacson

383. “It was a self-fulfilling distortion,” she claimed. “You did the impossible, because you didn’t realize it was impossible.”

— Walter Isaacson

384. “La Bella Principessa: The Story of the New Masterpiece by Leonardo Da Vinci.31.”

— Walter Isaacson

385. “The astronomer Johannes Kepler declared that “nature loves simplicity and unity.” So did Steve Jobs.”

— Walter Isaacson

386. “The idea that John Lasseter pitched was called “Toy Story.”

— Walter Isaacson

387. “We believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,” Jobs declared in an email to a customer. “Folks who want porn can buy an Android.”

— Walter Isaacson

388. “Search the phrase “the man who invented” on Amazon and you get 1,860 book results. But we have far fewer tales of collaborative creativity, which is actually more important in understanding how today’s technology revolution was fashioned.”

— Walter Isaacson

389. “The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant called him the “new Prometheus” for stealing the fire of heaven. He quickly became not only the most celebrated scientist in America and Europe, but also a popular hero. In solving one of the universe’s greatest mysteries, he had conquered one of nature’s most terrifying dangers.”

— Walter Isaacson

390. “Jobs quoted Picasso: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” He added, “And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

— Walter Isaacson

391. “The important thing with Elon,” he says, “is that if you told him the risks and showed him the engineering data, he would make a quick assessment and let the responsibility shift from your shoulders to his.”

— Walter Isaacson

392. “Abandoned. Chosen. Special. Those concepts became part of who Jobs was and how he regarded himself.”

— Walter Isaacson

393. “His comparisons between man-made machinery and the handiwork of nature produced in him a deep reverence for the latter. “Though human ingenuity may make various inventions,” he wrote, “it will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple, more direct than does Nature; because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”15.”

— Walter Isaacson

394. “Every reasonable person must strive to promote moderation and a more objective judgment.”3.”

— Walter Isaacson

395. “I think you still have to think differently to buy an Apple computer,” he said. “The people who buy them do think different. They are the creative spirits in this world, and they’re out to change the world. We make tools for those kinds of people.”

— Walter Isaacson

396. “Because a lot of people think they’re crazy, but in that craziness we see genius.”

— Walter Isaacson

397. “Ive was a fan of the German industrial designer Dieter Rams, who worked for the electronics firm Braun. Rams preached the gospel of “Less but better,” Weniger aber besser, and likewise Jobs and Ive wrestled with each new design to see how much they could simplify it.”

— Walter Isaacson

398. “If you wish to make an imaginary animal invented by you appear natural, let us say a dragon, take for the head that of a mastiff or hound, for the eyes a cat, and for the ears a porcupine, and for the nose a greyhound, and the brows of a lion, the temple of an old cock, the neck of a terrapin.”

— Walter Isaacson

399. “One useful leadership talent is knowing when to push ahead against doubters and when to heed them.”

— Walter Isaacson

400. “The reason Apple resonates with people is that there’s a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side.”

— Walter Isaacson