The Last Lecture Quotes

“I don't believe in no-win situations”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“(About The Last Lecture) 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.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“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. Fuel your kids' dreams, too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“I'd compare college tuition to paying for a personal trainer at an athletic club. We professors play the roles of trainers, giving people access to the equipment (books, labs, our expertise) and after that, it is our job to be demanding. We need to make sure that 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.
Most importantly, we need to let them know how to judge for themselves how they're coming along. 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.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every time, because hip is short-term. Earnest is long-term. Earnestness is highly underestimated. It comes from the core, while hip is trying to impress you with the surface.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Just because you’re in the driver’s seat,” he’d say, “doesn’t mean you have to run people over.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“I know you're smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn't enough.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“The second kind of head fake is the really important one—the one that teaches people things they don’t realize they’re learning until well into the process.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“قدموا المساعدة للآخرين كما قدمها لكم آخرون من قبل”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“العمل بجد كالفائدة المركبة في البنوك حيث تزداد أرباحها سريعاً”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“عالج المرض نفسه و ليس أعراضه”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“الشكوى لن تصل بنا إلى تحقيق أهدافنا و لن تجلب لنا السعادة”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“الخبرة هي الشيئ الذي تفوز به عندما لا توفق في تحقيق ماكنت ترنو إليه”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“الحظ يأتي بالفعل عندما يتوافق إستعداد المرء مع مايواتيه من فرص”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Brick walls are there for a 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.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Two decades later, when I got my PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, I thought that made me infinitely qualified to do anything, so I dashed off my letters of application to Walt Disney Imagineering. And they sent me the nicest go-to-hell letter I'd ever received.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted...It's a phrase worth considering at every brick wall we encounter, and at every disappointment. It's also a reminder that failure is not just acceptable, it's often essential.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“It was a hot summer night, and I had the soundtrack to Disney’s The Lion King blasting on my stereo. Tears actually began streaming down my face as I drove past the building. Here I was, the grown-up version of that wide-eyed eight-year-old at Disneyland. I had finally arrived. I was an Imagineer.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Who remembers that it was Kirk who introduced us to the cell phone?”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“I mean, I don’t know how not to have fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to play it.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“One rule in our house is that you may not ask one-word questions. Dylan embraces that idea. He loves to formulate full-sentence questions, and his inquisitiveness goes beyond his years.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“walls are there for a 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.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you get hit ...and keep moving forward.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“There are a few key moments in anyone’s life. A person is fortunate if he can tell in hindsight when they happened.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Tenacity got me over the brick wall.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Never Give Up”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“No Job Is Beneath You”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Your patience will be both appreciated and rewarded.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Halfhearted or insincere apologies are often worse than not apologizing at all because recipients find them insulting.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture