Kevin Kelly Quotes

“A complaint is a unique opportunity to strengthen the relationship with the client.”

“A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.”

“A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.”

“A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.”

“Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction. But acquiring experiences will.”

“All imaginable futures are not equally possible.”

“Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.”

“An organization's intelligence is distributed to the point of being ubiquitous.”

“Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable.”

“Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe, and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.”

“Art is in what you leave out.”

“Be prepared: When you are 90% done any large project (a house, a film, an event, an app) the rest of the myriad details will take a second 90% to complete.”

“Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.”

“Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.”

“Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.”

“Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.”

“Don’t be the best. Be the only.”

“Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.”

“Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or a proposal on the phone. The urgency is a disguise.”

“Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it.”

“Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.”

“Don’t trust all-purpose glue.”

“Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.”

“Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.”

“Evolution doesn't care about what makes sense; it cares about what works.”

“Experience is overrated. When hiring, hire for aptitude, train for skills. Most really amazing or great things are done by people doing them for the first time.”

“Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.”

“Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something, anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss is.”

“For every dollar you spend purchasing something substantial, expect to pay a dollar in repairs, maintenance, or disposal by the end of its life.”