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My Favourite Inspirational Quotes on Life and Design

by Olegs Belousovs • Luglio 22, 2015

My collection of random famous (and not) quotes, taken from various books, articles and said by parents/friends, on the topics of life and design.

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

— Jon Kabat-Zinn

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

— Nelson Mandela

Always in motion is the future.

— Yoda

Don’t criticize unless you can do better.

— Donald A. Norman

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

— Benjamin Franklin

If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.

— Jay O’Callahan

I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.

— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

— Eric Hoffer

Come il ferro è consumato dalla ruggine, così gli invidiosi sono consumati dalla loro stessa passione.

— Antistene

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.

— Henry David Thoreau

If you get, give. If you learn, teach.

— Maya Angelou

Life is too short to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.

— Grace Hopper

La motivazione è il carburante del lavoro intellettuale.

— Unknown

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

— Peter Drucker

The beginning is the half of every action.

— Greek Proverb

Comparison is the death of joy.

— Mark Twain

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

— Lyndon B. Johnson

If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.

— Jay O’Callahan

…there is nothing new under the sun.

— Bible

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

— Albert Einstein

When there’s nothing, you can do anything.

— Shimon Peres

Work to become, not to acquire.

— Elbert Hubbard

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The problem contains the solution.

— Michael Beirut

The most important things in life aren’t things.

— Anthony J. D’Angelo

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

— Lao Tzu

Good design is as little design as possible.

— Dieter Rams

It’s better to burn out than to fade away.

— Neil Young

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

— Amelia Earhart

Leave something for someone but don’t leave someone for something.

— Enid Blyton

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

— Peter Drucker

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

— John Lennon

The future is a journey, not a destination.

— Bruce Sterling

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

— Albert Einstein

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

— Aristotle

…a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention…

— Herbert A. Simon

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.

— André Gide

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.

— Bill Cosby

The best design is the simplest one that works.

— Albert Einstein

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

— Benjamin Disraeli

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

— Leo Tolstoy

You can do anything, but not everything.

— David Allen

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.

— African Proverb

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

— Ernst Friedrich Schumacher

What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.

— Ray Eames

When you are tired of saying it, they are starting to hear it.

— Jeff Weiner

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.

— Unknown

It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.

— Sankofa

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

— Morpheus

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

— Peter Drucker

It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times.

— Russian Proverb

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

— Jimi Hendrix

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

The things you own end up owning you.

— Tyler Durden

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

— Will Rogers

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

— D. H. Lawrence

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.

— Shunryu Suzuki

Designer can design a solution to a problem, but they can’t design a solution to a disagreement.

— Mike Monteiro

Believe in yourself and stop trying to convince others.

— James De La Vega

There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.

— George Shine

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

— Abraham Lincoln

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

— Leonardo da Vinci

Time is the only resource we have that is nonrenewable.

— Porter Gale

Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.

— William Edwards Deming

Design is like air, you only notice it when it’s bad.

— Unknown

Ciò che conta è quello che impari quando sai già tutto.

— John Wooden

È meglio essere primi che meglio degli altri.

— Al Ries

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

— Gretchen Rubin

Art is theft.

— Pablo Picasso

If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.

— Jay O’Callahan

When you stop moving, the music stops.

— Andrew Weinreich

The best defense is a good offense.

— Unknown

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

— Walter Bagehot

Senza crisi non ci sono sfide, senza sfide la vita è una routine, una lenta agonia.

— Albert Einstein

Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.

— Clayton Christensen

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

— Vincent Van Gogh

Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.

— Mark Cook

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

— Gretchen Rubin

Every entrepreneur I have ever met is an artist. They are all forced to become comfortable with failure. And for entrepreneurs, their canvas is their company.

— John Maeda

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

— Burrhus Frederic Skinner

Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

— Paul Valery

I think you just have to work hard for about 10 years before you know what you’re doing.

— Ben Chestnut

Gran parte dello stress deriva da impegni – presi con se stessi o con gli altri – gestiti in modo non adeguato.

— David Allen

If you can change your mind, you can change your life.

— William James

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without the work.

— Émile Zola

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.

— Lily Tomlin

The days are long, but the years are short.

— Gretchen Rubin

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

— Carl Jung

Without great solitude no serious work is possible.

— Pablo Picasso

If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it.

— George Pólya

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

— Anaïs Nin

Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore.

— Steven Johnson

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Moderation is a fatal thing… Nothing succeeds like excess.

— Oscar Wilde

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

— Albert Einstein

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

— Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Make yourself become who you are.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

— Winston Churchill

The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.

— Eugene Delacroix

Finché la gente accetterà la spazzatura, sarà redditizio venderla.

— Dick Cavett

A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.

— Kenneth Tynan

Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

— Nelson Mandela

Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count really count.

— Albert Einstein

La conoscenza non è sufficiente, dobbiamo applicarla. La volontà non è abbastanza, dobbiamo agire.

— Bruce Lee

Fall seven times and stand up eight.

— Japanese Proverb

You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool your own mind.

— David Allen

As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

— John Archibald Wheeler

Hell is other people.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

— John Lennon

You can’t TRY to do things, you must simply DO them.

— Ray Bradbury

The distance between dreams and reality is called discipline.

— Unknown

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

— Thomas Edison

It is difficult to judge beauty: beauty is an enigma.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Non lo so quale sia la chiave del successo, ma la chiave per il fallimento è nel cercare di accontentare tutti.

— Bill Cosby

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.

— Neil Postman

Quit picking fights and go make something!

— Austin Kleon

If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.

— Katharine Hepburn

The good life consists in enjoying the creativity of others, and in sharing our own, not just in having our basic needs met.

— Tim O'Reilly

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

— Salvador Dalí

Everybody is interesting when they are interested in something.

— Amy Poehler

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

— Grace Hopper

An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.

— Ernst Friedrich Schumacher

The best design tool is a long eraser with a pencil at one end.

— Marty Neumeier

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

— Harry S. Truman

Everywhere is a walking distance if you have the time

— Steven Wright

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

— Seneca

Diciamo di ammazzare il tempo come se, purtroppo, non fosse il tempo ad ammazzare noi.

— Alphonse Allais

Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей.

— Russian Proverb

View obstacles as opportunities for growth.

— Unknown

Your work is something you do, not who you are.

— Austin Kleon

Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

— Jeff Bezos

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.

— Frank Zappa

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

— Donald A. Norman

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

— Aristotle

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.

— Warren Buffet

Dovete andare fieri del vostro nemico; allora i successi del vostro nemico saranno anche i vostri successi.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

You are as great as the cause that you serve and as young as your dreams.

— Shimon Peres

Data explains, stories inspire.

— Paul Kenny

Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.

— Milton Erickson

If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.

— Malcolm X

You never know what you can do till you try.

— Russian Proverb

It’s easier to make things people want, than it is to make people want things.

— Intercom

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.

— Voltaire

Those who tell the stories rule society.

— Plato

Everything popular is wrong.

— Oscar Wilde

The days are long, but the years are short.

— Gretchen Rubin

Men have become the tools of their tools.

— Henry David Thoreau

Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn.

— Austin Kleon

Music is the space between the notes.

— Claude Debussy

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

— Albert Einstein

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

The real risk is in not changing. I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.

— John Coltrane

Whatever we say, we are always talking about ourselves.

— Alison Bechdel

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

— Albert Einstein

You can only organize something if you understand how it works.

— John Maeda

It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.

— Leigh Michaels

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