Kevin Kelly Quotes

Telling the future is what organisms are for.

Spend as much time crafting the subject line of an email as the message itself, because the subject line is often the only thing people read.

No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.

Everyone’s time is finite and shrinking. The highest leverage you can get with your money is to buy someone else’s time. Hire and outsource when you can.

When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process.

Without some element of governance from the top, bottom-up control will freeze when options are many. Without some element of leadership, the many at the bottom will be paralysed with choices.

As far back as 1813, Thomas Jefferson understood that ideas were not really property, or if they were property they differed from real estate. He wrote, “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” If

You will complete your mission in life when you figure out what your mission in life is. Your purpose is to discover your purpose. This is not a paradox. This is the way.

When sharing, one person divides, the other chooses.

The hydrogen atoms in a human body completely refresh every seven years. As we age we are really a river of cosmically old atoms. The carbons in our bodies were produced in the dust of a star. The bulk of matter in our hands, skin, eyes, and hearts was made near the beginning of time, billions of years ago. We are much older than we look.

The net shifts from mass media to mess media.

You owe everyone a second chance, but not a third.

The migration from ad hoc use to commercialisation cannot be rushed. To reach ubiquity you have to pass through sharing.

Occasionally your first idea is best, but usually it’s the fifth idea. You need to get all the obvious ideas out of the way. Try to surprise yourself.

Bits want to move. Bits want to be linked to other bits. Bits want to be reckoned in real time. Bits want to be duplicated, replicated, copied. Bits want to be meta.