My Favourite Inspirational Quotes on Life and Design
by Olegs Belousovs •
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.
Quit picking fights and go make something!
What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.
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.
Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Leave something for someone but don’t leave someone for something.
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore.
It is difficult to judge beauty: beauty is an enigma.
You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.
Non lo so quale sia la chiave del successo, ma la chiave per il fallimento è nel cercare di accontentare tutti.
La conoscenza non è sufficiente, dobbiamo applicarla. La volontà non è abbastanza, dobbiamo agire.
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Moderation is a fatal thing… Nothing succeeds like excess.
Many of the things you can count, don’t count. Many of the things you can’t count really count.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Make yourself become who you are.
Fear is often just the imagination taking a wrong turn.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
Everywhere is a walking distance if you have the time
Art is theft.
Life is too short to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.
The best design is the simplest one that works.
I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.
Come il ferro è consumato dalla ruggine, così gli invidiosi sono consumati dalla loro stessa passione.
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
You can’t TRY to do things, you must simply DO them.
It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
The best design tool is a long eraser with a pencil at one end.
Ciò che conta è quello che impari quando sai già tutto.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
I think you just have to work hard for about 10 years before you know what you’re doing.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Time is the only resource we have that is nonrenewable.
Those who tell the stories rule society.
Your work is something you do, not who you are.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Diciamo di ammazzare il tempo come se, purtroppo, non fosse il tempo ad ammazzare noi.
Designer can design a solution to a problem, but they can’t design a solution to a disagreement.
Design is like air, you only notice it when it’s bad.
You are as great as the cause that you serve and as young as your dreams.
Waiting for inspiration is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.
Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
…there is nothing new under the sun.
The good life consists in enjoying the creativity of others, and in sharing our own, not just in having our basic needs met.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
Always in motion is the future.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
You can fool everyone else, but you can’t fool your own mind.
Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
Finché la gente accetterà la spazzatura, sarà redditizio venderla.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
Whatever we say, we are always talking about ourselves.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without the work.
It always seems impossible until it’s done.
…a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention…
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.
The distance between dreams and reality is called discipline.
Believe in yourself and stop trying to convince others.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away.
Dovete andare fieri del vostro nemico; allora i successi del vostro nemico saranno anche i vostri successi.
Fall seven times and stand up eight.
Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.
The days are long, but the years are short.
Everybody is interesting when they are interested in something.
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.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
The problem contains the solution.
The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
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.
Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Everything popular is wrong.
Hell is other people.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.
Data explains, stories inspire.
As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
It’s easier to make things people want, than it is to make people want things.
The best defense is a good offense.
Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.
If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
Don’t criticize unless you can do better.
You can do anything, but not everything.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.
Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Senza crisi non ci sono sfide, senza sfide la vita è una routine, una lenta agonia.
Music is the space between the notes.
The future is a journey, not a destination.
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
La motivazione è il carburante del lavoro intellettuale.
View obstacles as opportunities for growth.
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.
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.
Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.
The beginning is the half of every action.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Work to become, not to acquire.
If our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.
You never know what you can do till you try.
The days are long, but the years are short.
Gran parte dello stress deriva da impegni – presi con se stessi o con gli altri – gestiti in modo non adeguato.
If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it.
If you get, give. If you learn, teach.
When you stop moving, the music stops.
Comparison is the death of joy.
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.
Do not judge me by my successes; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times.
The things you own end up owning you.
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.
The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.
An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.
When there’s nothing, you can do anything.
È meglio essere primi che meglio degli altri.
You can only organize something if you understand how it works.
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.