Randy Pausch Quotations | Page 2

The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.

it make no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities

Focus on other people, not on yourself.

Are you a Tigger or an Eyore?

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

Look, I'm going to find a way to be happy, and I'd really love to be happy with you, but if I can't be happy with you, then I'll find a way to be happy without you.

If you can find an opening, you can probably find a way to float through it.

Randy Pausch on time management: Here's what I know: Time must be explicitly managed, like money. You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? Develop a good filing system. Rethink the telephone. Delegate. Take a time out. Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

I've always admired people who are over-prepared.

All my adult life I've felt drawn to ask long-married couples how they were able to stay together. All of them said the same thing: "We worked hard at it.

there should be some lessons learned and how you can use the stuff you hear today to achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older, you may find that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.

No job should, be beneath us. And if you can't(or won't) sort mail, Where is the proof that you can do anything?

People are more important than things.

I was hugely impressed... was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn't know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn't want to leave until he understood. That's heroic to me. I wish every grad student had that attitude.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask, and it can lead to all your dreams coming true.

somehow, with the passage of time, and the dealines that life imposes, surrending became the right thing to do

Not everything needs to be fixed

if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.

Want to have a short phone call with someone? Call them at 11:55 a.m., right before lunch. They'll talk fast. You may think you are interesting, but you are not more interesting than lunch.

And even though I did not reach the NFL, I sometimes think I got more from persuing that dream, and not accomplishing it, then I did from many of the ones I did accomplish.

Apologies are not pass/fail.

Complaining does not work as a strategy.

I know you're smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn't enough. The kind of people I want on my research team are those who will help everyone feel happy to be here.

It's not helpful if we spend every day dreading tomorrow ~Jai

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.

Get a feedback loop and listen to it... When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.

To be cliché, death is a part of life and it's going to happen to all of us. I have the blessing of getting a little bit of advance notice and I am able to optimize my use of time down the home stretch.

Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.

Show gratitude. Gratitude is a simple but powerful thing.

Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre.

I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.

One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.

You will need to find your passion. Don't give up on finding it because then all you're doing is waiting for the Reaper.

The size of your audience doesn't matter. What's important is that your audience is listening.

The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.

Advice is very easy to give, and even easier not to follow, so I don't fool with it.

Brick walls are there for reason. And once you get over them-- even if someone has practically had to throw you over-- it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it.

Respect authority while questioning it.

We need to make sure our students are exerting themselves. We need to praise them when they deserve it and to tell them honestly when they have it in them to work harder,

Be good at something. It makes you valuable.

When you do the right thing, good stuff has a way of happening.

Call home at least once a week. It's a proven fact that we call home less the older we get. And that's wrong. It should be the other way around. As we get older, our parents get older.

Tradition, history and respect; that kind of qualities I admire, that I want to see preserved. Time is the only commodity that matters. Being successful doesn't make you manage your time well; managing your time well makes you successful. Goals, Priorities, and Planning. Why am I doing this? What is the goal? Why will I succeed? What happen if I chose not to do it? 'Good judgement comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgement'.

It's easy to be smart when you are parodying smart people.

Remember how quickly our field [computer science] changes. That's why you want to focus on learning things that don't change: how to work well with other people, how to carefully assess a client's real - as opposed to perceived - needs, and things like that.

What he said was: "You obviously don't know where the bar should be, and you're only going to do a disservice by putting it anywhere." And boy was that good advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don't know where the bar should be, and you're only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere.

The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!

I understand the arguments about how the billions of dollars spent to put men on the moon could have been used to fight poverty and hunger on Earth. But, look, I'm a scientist who sees inspiration as the ultimate tool for doing good. When you use money to fight poverty, it can be of great value, but too often, you're working at the margins. When you're putting people on the moon, you're inspiring all of us to achieve the maximum of human potential, which is how our greatest problems will eventually be solved. Give yourself permission to dream.

When you do something young enough and you train for it, it just becomes a part of you.

Being successful doesn't make you manage your time well. Managing your time well makes you successful!

Luck is indeed where preparation meets opportunity.

Everyone has to contribute to the common good. To not do so can be described in one word: selfish.

If she doesn't really love you, then it's over. And if she does love you, then love will win out.

Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day because there's no other way to play it.

If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

It's interesting, the secrets you decide to reveal at the end of your life.

Anybody can get chewed out. It's the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. As opposed to, no wait, the reason is... We've all heard that

When you're frustrated with people, when they've made you angry, it just may be because you haven't given them enough time.

Don't bail; the best pieces of gold are at the bottom of the barrel of crap.

You just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore.

Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I'm sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It's the third part that people tend to forget. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.

Well, you can’t have just some of me, Jai,” I told her. “You appreciate the part of me that didn’t get angry because two ‘things’ we own got hurt. But the flip side of that is my belief that you don’t repair things if they still do what they’re supposed to do. The cars still work. Let’s just drive ’em.

A parent's job is to encourage kids to develop a joy for life and a great urge to follow their own dreams. The best we can do is to help thm develop a personal set of tools for the task.

Believe nothing a man tells you and everything he shows you"....(Taken from a farewell video from a dying father to his infant daughter on dating)

No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.

Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.

Look for the best in everybody

My colleague told me: "It took a long time, but I finally figured it out. When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.

We don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.

A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.

No job is beneath you. You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom And when you get there, here's what you do: Be really great at sorting mail.

You will not find your passion in things and you will not find your passion in money. The more things and the more money you have, the more you will look around and use that as the metric and there will be someone with more.

The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I'd always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.

You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

Give yourself permission to dream. Fuel your kids' dreams too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.

If I work hard enough, there will be things I can do tomorrow that I can't do today.

Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

The questions are always more important than the answers.

There are more ways than one to measure profits and losses.

Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.

It's not how hard you hit. It's how hard you get hit...and keep moving forward.

Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.

Engineering isn't about perfect solutions; it's about doing the best you can with limited resources.

We've placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people's rights. That's how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.

When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him.

Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I've always believed that if you took one tenth the enrgy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out.

Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want

Never lose the child like wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others.

Walls aren't put in our life to stop us, they are there to test how much we really want somthing.

A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.

educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve—as Coach Graham taught me—is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can’t accurately do that, how can we tell if we’re getting better or worse?

Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress. When you're pissed off at someone and you're angry at them, you just haven't given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they almost always will impress you.

Anything is possible, and that’s something we should not lose sight of. The inspiration and the permission to dream is huge.

We keep what is valuable to us, what we cherish.

It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life, ... If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.

Sometimes you can't pay it back, so you just have to pay it forward.

No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better

Believe nothing a man tells you and everything he shows you

Its important to have specific dreams. Dream Big. Dream without fear.