Quote

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

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Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Work
Eye
Mysterious
Flickers
Making
Lips
Mona
Science
Smile
Optics
Makes
Understood
Lisa
Art
Emotional
Leonardo
Light
Painting
Elusive
Ever
Goes
Muscles
Done
Greatest
Strikes

More quotes by Walter Isaacson

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i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
Walter Isaacson
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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)
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By the end of his career, he [Steve Jobs] has proven that he can do the impossible, and he has gathered probably the most loyal team of eight players of any business in America.
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Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?
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Jobs did not know that Sculley had told Eisenstat he wanted to quit, but by then it didn't matter. Overnight, he had changed his mind and decided to stay. Despite the blowup the day before, he was still eager for Jobs to like him. So he agreed to meet the next afternoon.
Walter Isaacson
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And if you don't have your ears open, you're not going to be able to figure out what you should be doing.
Walter Isaacson
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Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.
Walter Isaacson
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It's about doing something larger than yourself. It's about serving this world, helping others.
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Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.
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On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?
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It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan ...[Showing the misery of Afghanistan ran the risk of] promoting enemy propaganda...we must talk about how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the Taliban have harboured the terrorists responsible for killing close up to 5,000 innocent people.
Walter Isaacson
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I think Leonardo da Vinci teaches us the value of both being focused on things that fascinate us but also, at times, being distracted and deciding to pursue some shiny new idea that you happen to stumble upon. Balancing intense focus with being interested in a whole lot of different things is something that we have to do in the Internet age.
Walter Isaacson
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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
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Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Walter Isaacson
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The childhood that Paul and Clara Jobs created for their new son was, in many ways, a stereotype of the late 1950s. When Steve was two they adopted a girl they named Patty, and three years later they moved to a tract house in the suburbs.
Walter Isaacson
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For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence.
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I think that genius comes not just from having great mental processing power. It comes from being able to, as Steve Jobs' ad said, think different.
Walter Isaacson
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The best and most innovative products don't always win...(it's an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked
Walter Isaacson
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I think America is really well-positioned, because we do train people to be creative and sometimes resist authority, which helps in being an innovator. I think you're going to see for the next phase of the revolution all sorts of wonderful ways of connecting art and literature and journalism into new forms of digital expression.
Walter Isaacson
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You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last. Excerpt From: Walter, Isaacson. “Steve Jobs.” Simon & Schuster, 2011-10-23T21:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Walter Isaacson