“The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done.”
Letter to "Micheal" (16 February 1970), Micheal was a 10 year old boy who had inquired in a letter as to whether Fuller was a "doer" or a "thinker".
1970s
Context: The Things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done — that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. This will bring out the real you that often gets buried inside a character that has acquired a superficial array of behaviors induced or imposed by others on the individual.
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Buckminster Fuller 171
American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inv… 1895–1983Related quotes
Variant: We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie
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Source: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), p. 460.
Source: Computing machinery and intelligence
Source: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
“Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.”
“One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not to be done at all.”
Source: Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
as quoted by [Steven Chu and Charles H. Townes, Biographical Memoirs V.83, National Academies Press, 2003, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10830, 0-309-08699-X, 201]