Quotes
Don’t avoid the obvious.
—Michael Bierut
Find out who you are and be it on purpose.
—Dolly Parton
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
—Dorothy Parker
Not everything is design, but design is about everything. So do yourself a favor: be ready for anything.
—Michael Bierut
If you do it right, it will last forever.
—Massimo Vignelli
Working without a plan may seem scary. But blindly following a plan that has no relationship with reality is even scarier.
—Jason Fried
Thoughtfulness is free and burns on time and empathy.
—Frank Chimero
The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. To be interesting, be interested.
—Kevin Kelly
Before a lot of advice can be really useful, it’s good to understand why you need that advice.
—Merlin Mann
The details are not the details.
They make the design.
—Charles Eames
There’s a very thin line between simple, clean and powerful, and simple, clean and boring.
—David Carson
To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
—Kevin Kelly
The most important skill a school can pass down to its students is the ability to motivate themselves.
—Margret Rasfeld
The most effective, most creative problem solvers engage in a process of meta-thinking, or thinking about the thinking.
—Matthew Frederick
Sooner or later, the story you tell needs to be true.
—Seth Godin
Buy a guitar and play in your garage and suck for a while. Don’t worry about a CD or a label, just suck.
—Dave Grohl, via “The Lost Discipline of Practice”
The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
The first exception should be the hardest one to make. Once you’ve made one, each additional exception gets exponentially easier. Beware that first exception.
—Jason Fried
We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.
—Marshall McLuhan
Anyone who makes up their mind about an issue before they hear the issue is a fool.
—Chris Rock
Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.
—Albert Einstein
Don’t mistake speed for precocity: the world doesn’t need wrong answers in record time.
—Cennydd Bowles
We each have to decide our own comfort level or how much you can tolerate—how much of the unknown, the undefined, and the incomplete you can tolerate.
—Merlin Mann
Amateurs get angry with clients. Professionals educate them.
—Paul Jarvis
I’m not convinced I know how to read, I’ve just memorized a lot of words.
—Nick Miller, New Girl
Aesthetics are debatable, but writing is essential.
—Jason Downey
New is easy. Right is hard.
—Craig Federighi
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve an equation, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
—Robert A. Heinlein
Eventually everything connects.
—Charles Eames
Never delegate understanding.
—Charles Eames
The things that made you weird as a kid make you great today.
—James Victore
Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.
—Anonymous
Boredom is a choice. Like tardiness. Or interrupting.
—Mike Rowe
Stop counting the hours and start tracking your progress. No one cares how long you struggled to get better… only that you are better.
—Noah Bradley
1,000 bloggers all talking to each other doesn’t get you a report from a war zone.
—Jimmy Wales
Bureaucracy certainly exists, but you decide whether you want to work within it.
—Dan Mall
Anyone can complain about the world, but only a good few can fix it.
—Cennydd Bowles
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
—Mother Theresa
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
—André Gide
Find something you like to do and do it with enthusiasm.
—Kenneth “Grandpa” J. Zinser
Quotes from sagmeisterwalsh.com
Every project is improvable
Being against things got boring
We will do anything for design
We probably eat more avocados than you
Visit Joe’s Shanghai
Love = Oxygen
Keep a business diary
Beauty is part of the function
3rd World offices, 1st world prices
For a good time call (212) 647 1789
Ointment sounds good
Beauty = price
A donkey in a castle doesn’t make it king, it makes the castle a stable.
In matters of style swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
—Thomas Jefferson