I don't mind when people are unambitious. It's up to each person to decide that. But it bugs me when the people who aren't ambitious try to bring dow… - Paul Graham

Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.

Someone graduating from college thinks, and is told, that he needs to get a job, as if the important thing were becoming a member of an institution. A more direct way to put it would be: you need to start doing something people want. You don’t need to join a company to do that. All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want. It’s doing something people want that matters, not joining the group.

If we were talking about Europe in 1000, or most of the third world today, the standard misquotation would be spot on.