Randy Pausch: Trending quotes (page 2)

“So what is today's talk about then? It's about my childhood dreams and how I've achieved them”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

I've been very fortunate that way; how I believe I've been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons learned: I'm a professor — there should be some lessons learned — and how you can use the stuff you hear today to enable your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older you may find that enabling-the-dreams-of-others thing is even more fun.
The Last Lecture (2007)

Dreams , Childhood

“People are more important than things.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: The questions are always more important than the answers."

Attitude , Motivational , Success , Business

“Avoiding Procrastination: Doing things at the last minute is much more expensive than just before the last minute. Deadlines are really important: establish them yourself!”

Randy Pausch

Time Management (2007)

“Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories. And they will figure out how those stories apply to them.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)

People

“Failing to plan is planning to fail. Plan Each Day, Each Week, Each Semester. You can always change your plan, but only once you have one!”

Randy Pausch

Time Management (2007)

“Your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside.”

Randy Pausch

CMU Graduation speech (2008)
Context: You will need find your passion. Many of you have already done it, many of you will later, many of you may take to your thirties or forties, but don't give up on finding it. Right, then all you are doing is waiting for the reaper. Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more. Your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. And honors and awards are nice things, but only to the extent that they regard real respect from your peers. And to be thought of well by people you think of more highly up is a tremendous honor I've been granted. Find your passion, and in my experience, no matter what you do at work or what you do in in official settings, that passion will be grounded in people. It will be grounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes.

Passion , Motivational

“You obviously don't know where the bar should be, and you're only going to do a disservice by putting it anywhere.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

When Pausch spoke of "You obviously don't know where the bar should be, and you're only going to do a disservice by putting it anywhere." he was quoting the advice of Andries van Dam on challenging his students after they already completed excellent performances on their first two week assignment.
The Last Lecture (2007)
Context: 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.

“The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they're learning something else.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)
Context: The best way to teach somebody something is to have them think they're learning something else. I’ve done it my whole career. And the head fake here is that they’re learning to program but they just think they’re making movies and video games.

Way , Thinking , Learning

“You will need find your passion.”

Randy Pausch

Many of you have already done it, many of you will later, many of you may take to your thirties or forties, but don't give up on finding it. Right, then all you are doing is waiting for the reaper. Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more. Your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. And honors and awards are nice things, but only to the extent that they regard real respect from your peers. And to be thought of well by people you think of more highly up is a tremendous honor I've been granted. Find your passion, and in my experience, no matter what you do at work or what you do in in official settings, that passion will be grounded in people. It will be grounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes.
CMU Graduation speech (2008)

Passion

“Never break a promise, but re-negotiate them if need be. If you haven’t got time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it wrong. Recognize that most things are pass/fail.”

Randy Pausch

Time Management (2007)
Context: General Advice: Never break a promise, but re-negotiate them if need be. If you haven’t got time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it wrong. Recognize that most things are pass/fail. Feedback loops: ask in confidence.

Time

“Everyone has Good and Bad Times. Find your creative/thinking time. Defend it ruthlessly, spend it alone”

Randy Pausch

Time Management (2007)
Context: 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.

Thinking , Time

“And these are the kind of things that I think everybody ought to be doing. Helping others.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)
Context: My dad was so full of life, anything with him was an adventure. [Shows picture of his Dad holding a brown paper bag] I don’t know what’s in that bag, but I know it’s cool. My dad dressed up as Santa Claus, but he also did very, very significant things to help lots of people. This is a dormitory in Thailand that my mom and dad underwrote. And every year about 30 students get to go to school who wouldn’t have otherwise. This is something my wife and I have also been involved in heavily. And these are the kind of things that I think everybody ought to be doing. Helping others.

Thinking , Help

“A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)

“We don't beat the reaper by living longer, but by living well, and living fully — for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is: what do we do between the time we're born and the time he shows up.”

Randy Pausch

CMU Graduation speech (2008)
Context: We don't beat the reaper by living longer, but by living well, and living fully — for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is: what do we do between the time we're born and the time he shows up. Because when he shows up, it’s too late to do all the things that you’re always gonna, kinda get around to.

Question , Time

“You don’t find time for important things, you make it.”

Randy Pausch

Time Management (2007)

Time

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2007)