Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The advice is based on experience, rather than a metaphor or an idea you try to imagine: no one wants to die. Even those who want to go to heaven don't want to die to go there. However, death is the end we all share. And no one can escape from it. That's how things should be, because death is the best invention of life. It is a life-changing agent: erasing the old to make room for the new. Currently the new is you, but one day, not too far from today, little by little you will become the old and will be erased.

I'm sorry to be so dramatic, but it's the truth. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't get caught up in dogma, which is living according to what others think. Don't let the noise of other people's opinions be louder than your inner voice. The most important thing is to have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition. Somehow they really know what you want to be and everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing book called “The Whole Earth Catalog” that was one of the foundational books for my generation of young people.

It was written by Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brings it to life with his own poetic touch. This was the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, and everything was done with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid instant cameras. It was like providing Google website services on paper, 35 years before Google came to us. It was a perfect book, full of technical tools and great ideas. Stuart and his colleagues put together several issues of "The Whole Earth Catalog," and after he took his time and it was time for the final edit, they worked hard to craft the final issue.

This was in the mid-1970s, when I was your age. On the last cover of the last issue was a photo showing a beautiful farm road in the morning, the kind you would carry your bag down and have cars stop along the way to take you if you were the adventurous type. Along with this picturesque view a phrase appeared below the image that reads: "Stay hungry, stay stupid." Be his farewell phrase for his readers. Stay hungry. It's still stupid. I always wanted this for myself. And as you graduate to start over, I wish the same for you too.

Stay hungry. It's still stupid. Thank you all . The above program is copyright Stanford University. Visit our website at

stanford

.edu.