It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.
Interpretation
The integration of technology with the arts and humanities produces meaningful and inspiring outcomes.
Steve Jobs emphasizes the importance of blending technology with liberal arts and humanities, suggesting that such a combination leads to innovative and emotionally resonant results. This quote highlights how creativity and humanistic perspectives can enhance technological advancements, ultimately creating products and experiences that resonate deeply with people.
In practice
In a speech about forging partnerships between departments at a university, one might use this quote to underline the value of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.
It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
We're not in hardware for hardware's sake. We're in hardware to be able to express all our platform and productivity software in a way that's unique.
I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web... Now even my cat has its own page.
Before social media, if I, as an individual wanted to publish something to the world, unless I could get some local TV crew to interview me, or I wrote an op-ed or took out an ad, I had no voice.
Social media's greatest assets - anonymity, 'virality,' interconnectedness - are also its main weaknesses.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.