Randy Pausch Quotes

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.

I've found that a substantial fraction of many people’s days is spent
worrying about what others think of them. If nobody ever worried
about what was in other people’s heads, we’d all be 33 percent more
effective in our lives and on our jobs.

Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.

Everyone has Good and Bad Times. Find your creative/thinking time. Defend it ruthlessly, spend it alone, maybe at home. Find your dead time. Schedule meetings, phone calls, and mundane stuff during it.

The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.

If you want something badly enough, do not give up!

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!

When you're eight or nine years old and you look at the TV set men are landing on the moon — anything is possible. And that is something we need to not lose sight of, is that the inspiration and permission to dream is immense. … It's important to have specific dreams.

Whatever news we get about the scans, I’m not going to die when we hear it. I
won’t die the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. So
today, right now, well this is a wonderful day. And I want you to know
how much I’m enjoying it.”
I thought about that, and about Jai’s smile.
I knew then. That’s the way the rest of my life would need to be lived.

You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.

Just because you’re in the driver seat, doesn’t mean you have to run people over.

it make no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities

You can always change you plan, but only if you have one.

What he said was: "You obviously don't know where the bar should be, and you're only going to do a disservice by putting it anywhere." And boy was that good advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don’t know where the bar should be, and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere.

"Believe nothing a man tells you and everything he shows you"....(Taken from a farewell video from a dying father to his infant daughter on dating)