Older people sit down and ask, 'What is it?' but the boy asks, 'What can I do with it?'.
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the perspectives of older individuals and youth regarding curiosity and engagement with the world.
Steve Jobs highlights a generational difference in perception and attitude towards challenges and opportunities. While older individuals may reflect and question the nature of things, the younger generation embodies a more proactive approach, seeking to understand how to utilize what is available to them. This emphasizes the importance of curiosity and action over mere contemplation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about engaging youth in innovation.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life.
Real eyes, realize, real lies.
When you have accomplished your goal simply walk away. This is the path way to Heaven.
Each of us has an inner room where we can visit to be cleansed of fear-based thoughts and feelings. This room, the holy of holies, is a sanctuary of light.
Your failures and misfortunes don't threaten other people. . .It's your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior.
The intellect of two thousand asses cannot bring forth a single man's thought.
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