Quote

If you want to be a great American, you have got to understand Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, how the American Revolution happened. I think if you want to be a good citizen of the digital age, it helps to feel comfortable with both the people and the ways of thinking that created the digital revolution.

Walter Isaacson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
People
American
Washington
Understand
Helps
Helping
Created
Jefferson
Feel
Revolution
Franklin
Great
Comfortable
Thomas
Good
Ways
Citizen
Think
Happened
George
Thinking
Age
Digital

More quotes by Walter Isaacson

Image
Good telling of human stories is the best way to keep the Internet and World Wide Web from becoming a waste vastland.
Walter Isaacson
Image
One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters
Walter Isaacson
Image
Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, 'It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.
Walter Isaacson
Image
...never let a passion for the perfect take precedence over pragmatism.
Walter Isaacson
Image
What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.
Walter Isaacson
Image
When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I visited Jobs for the last time in his Palo Alto, Calif., home. He had moved to a downstairs bedroom because he was too weak to go up and down stairs. He was curled up in some pain, but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant
Walter Isaacson
Image
If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?
Walter Isaacson
Image
Not playing by the rules, not seeing things conventionally, that's the heart of who he [ Steve Jobs] is, and he does it in small ways of everyday rebellion just almost to assert who he is, like not putting a license plate on his car.
Walter Isaacson
Image
We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Mainly, the reason people who didn't succeed had trouble because they had trouble forming teams. They didn't know how to collaborate.
Walter Isaacson
Image
When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.
Walter Isaacson
Image
One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Leonardo da Vinci was lucky to be born the same year that Johannes Gutenberg opened his printing shop. As a young person, he could get information about whatever struck his curiosity. The Internet is to our age what Gutenberg's press was to his, so he would have loved being alive today.
Walter Isaacson
Image
Steve has a reality distortion field.” When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. “In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he’s not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules.
Walter Isaacson
Image
The Mona Lisa, to me, is the greatest emotional painting ever done. The way the smile flickers makes it a work of both art and science, because Leonardo understood optics, and the muscles of the lips, and how light strikes the eye - all of it goes into making the Mona Lisa's smile so mysterious and elusive.
Walter Isaacson
Image
I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)
Walter Isaacson