1、1Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005Thank you，I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college，this is the closest Ive ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three st
2、ories from my life. Thats it. No big deal. Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?It started before I was born
3、. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they de
4、cided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?“ They said: “Of course.“ My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from col
5、lege and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start of my life.And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college t
6、hat was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldnt see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spen
7、ding all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didnt
8、interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasnt all romantic. I didnt have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good
9、meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the camp
10、us every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didnt have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space betwee
11、n different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science cant capture, 2and I found it fascinating.None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designin
12、g the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Wind
13、ows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forw
14、ard when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.Again, you cant connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut, des
15、tiny, life, karma, whatever,because believing that the dots will connect on the road,will give you confidence to follow your heart even when it need you off the wear-worn path and now made all the difference.My second story is about love and loss.I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life.
16、 Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation the Macintosh a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.And the
17、n I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. Wh
18、en we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didnt know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I
19、had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me I still loved what I did. The turn
20、of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.I didnt see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by
21、 the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went
22、on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apples current renaissance. And La
23、urene and I have a wonderful family together.Im pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadnt 3been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Dont lose faith. Im convinced that the only thing that k
24、ept me going was that I loved what I did. Youve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great wor
25、k is to love what you do. If you havent found it yet, keep looking. Dont settle. As with all matters of the heart, youll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Dont settle.My third story is abou
26、t death.When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday youll most certainly be right.“ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the las
27、t day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?“ And whenever the answer has been “No“ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that Ill be dead soon is the most important tool Ive ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because al
28、most everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
29、You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didnt even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer th
30、at is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors code for prepare to die. It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought youd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few
31、 months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestin
32、es, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had
33、 the surgery and thankfully Im fine now.This was the closest Ive been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:No one wants to di
34、e. Even people who want to go to heaven dont want to die to get there.And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Lifes change agent. It clears out the old to make way fo
35、r the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will 4gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. Dont be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of
36、 other peoples thinking. Dont let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.When I was young, there was an amazing publica
37、tion called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch.This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was a
38、ll made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had
39、 run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Fo
40、olish.“ It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.5乔布斯 2005 年在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲谢谢（主持人） 。我今天很荣幸能和你们一起参加毕业典礼，斯坦福大学是世界
41、上最好的大学之一。我从来没有从大学中毕业。说实话，今天也许是在我的生命中离大学毕业最近的一天了。今天我想向你们讲述我生活中的三个故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三个故事而已。第一个故事是关于如何把生命中的点点滴滴串连起来。 我在 Reed 大学读了六个月之后就退学了，但是在十八个月以后我真正的作出退学决定之前，我还经常去学校。我为什么要退学呢？故事从我出生的时候讲起。我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的、没有结婚的大学毕业生。她决定让别人收养我， 她十分想让我被大学毕业生收养。所以在我出生的时候，她已经做好了一切的准备工作，能使得我被一个律师和他的妻子所收养。但是她没有料到，当我出生之后，律师夫妇突然决定
42、他们想要一个女孩。 所以我的生养父母（他们还在我亲生父母的观察名单上）突然在半夜接到了一个电话：“我们现在这儿有一个不小心生出来的男婴，你们想要他吗？”他们回答道：“当然！”但是我亲生母亲随后发现，我的养母从来没有上过大学，我的父亲甚至从没有读过高中。她拒绝签这个收养合同。只是在几个月以后，我的父母答应她一定要让我上大学，那个时候她才同意。 在十七岁那年，我真的上了大学。但是我很愚蠢的选择了一个几乎和你们斯坦福大学一样贵的学校， 我父母还处于蓝领阶层，他们几乎把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上面。在六个月后，我已经看不到其中的价值所在。我不知道我想要在生命中做什么，我也不知道大学能帮助我找到怎样的答
43、案。 但是在这里，我几乎花光了我父母这一辈子的所有积蓄。所以我决定要退学，我觉得这是个正确的决定。不能否认，我当时确实非常的害怕， 但是现在回头看看，那的确是我这一生中最棒的一个决定。在我做出退学决定的那一刻，我终于可以不必去读那些令我提不起丝毫兴趣的课程了。然后我还可以去修那些看起来有点意思的课程。但是这并不是那么罗曼蒂克。我失去了我的宿舍，所以我只能在朋友房间的地板上面睡觉，我去捡 5 美分的可乐瓶子，仅仅为了填饱肚子， 在星期天的晚上，我需要走七英里的路程，穿过这个城市到 Hare Krishna 寺庙，只是为了能吃上饭这个星期唯一一顿好一点的饭。但是我喜欢这样。我跟着我的直觉和好奇心走
44、, 遇到的很多东西,此后被证明是无价之宝。让我给你们举一个例子吧：Reed 大学在那时提供也许是全美最好的美术字课程。在这个大学里面的每个海报， 每个抽屉的标签上面全都是漂亮的美术字。因为我退学了，没有受到正规的训练，所以我决定去参加这个课程，去学学怎样写出漂亮的美术字。我学到了 san serif 和serif 字体 , 我学会了怎么样在不同的字母组合之中改变空格的长度 , 还有怎么样才能作出最棒的印刷式样。那是一种科学永远不能捕捉到的、美丽的、真实的艺术精妙，我发现那实在是太美妙了。当时看起来这些东西在我的生命中，好像都没有什么实际应用的可能。但是十年之后，当我们在设计第一台 Macint
45、osh 电脑的时候，就不是那样了。我把当时我学的那些家伙全都设计进了 Mac。那是第一台使用了漂亮的印刷字体的电脑。如果我当时没有退学，就不会有机会去参加这个我感兴趣的美术字课程， Mac 就不会有这么多丰富的字体，以及赏心悦目的字体间距。那么现在个人电脑就不会有现在这么美妙的字型了。当然我在大学的时候，还不可能把从前的点点滴滴串连起来，但是当我十年后回顾这一切的时候，真的豁然开朗了。再次说明的是，你在向前展望的时候不可能将这些片断串连起来；你只能在回顾的时候将点点滴滴串连起来。所以你必须相信这些片断会在你未来的某一天串连起来。你必须要相信某些东西：你的勇气、目的、生命、因缘。这个过程从来没有
46、令6我失望（let me down） ，只是让我的生命更加地与众不同而已。我的第二个故事是关于爱和损失的。 我非常幸运， 因为我在很早的时候就找到了我钟爱的东西。Woz 和我在二十岁的时候就在父母的车库里面开创了苹果公司。我们工作得很努力， 十年之后， 这个公司从那两个车库中的穷光蛋发展到了超过四千名的雇员、价值超过二十亿的大公司。在公司成立的第九年，我们刚刚发布了最好的产品，那就是Macintosh。我也快要到三十岁了。在那一年， 我被炒了鱿鱼。你怎么可能被你自己创立的公司炒了鱿鱼呢? 嗯，在苹果快速成长的时候，我们雇用了一个很有天分的家伙和我一起管理这个公司， 在最初的几年，公司运转的很好
47、。但是后来我们对未来的看法发生了分歧， 最终我们吵了起来。当争吵不可开交的时候， 董事会站在了他的那一边。所以在三十岁的时候， 我被炒了。在这么多人的眼皮下我被炒了。在而立之年，我生命的全部支柱离自己远去， 这真是毁灭性的打击。 在最初的几个月里，我真是不知道该做些什么。我把从前的创业激情给丢了， 我觉得自己让与我一同创业的人都很沮丧。我和 David Pack和 Bob Boyce 见面，并试图向他们道歉。我把事情弄得糟糕透顶了。但是我渐渐发现了曙光， 我仍然喜爱我从事的这些东西。苹果公司发生的这些事情丝毫的没有改变这些， 一点也没有。我被驱逐了，但是我仍然钟爱它。所以我决定从头再来。 我当
48、时没有觉察， 但是事后证明， 从苹果公司被炒是我这辈子发生的最棒的事情。因为，作为一个成功者的极乐感觉被作为一个创业者的轻松感觉所重新代替： 对任何事情都不那么特别看重。这让我觉得如此自由， 进入了我生命中最有创造力的一个阶段。 在接下来的五年里， 我创立了一个名叫 NeXT 的公司， 还有一个叫 Pixar 的公司， 然后和一个后来成为我妻子的优雅女人相识。Pixar 制作了世界上第一个用电脑制作的动画电影“”玩具总动员” ，Pixar 现在也是世界上最成功的电脑制作工作室。在后来的一系列运转中，Apple 收购了NeXT， 然后我又回到了 Apple 公司。我们在 NeXT 发展的技术在
49、Apple 的复兴之中发挥了关键的作用。我还和 Laurence 一起建立了一个幸福的家庭。 我可以非常肯定，如果我不被 Apple 开除的话， 这其中一件事情也不会发生的。这个良药的味道实在是太苦了，但是我想病人需要这个药。有些时候， 生活会拿起一块砖头向你的脑袋上猛拍一下。不要失去信心。我很清楚唯一使我一直走下去的，就是我做的事情令我无比钟爱。你需要去找到你所爱的东西。对于工作是如此， 对于你的爱人也是如此。你的工作将会占据生活中很大的一部分。你只有相信自己所做的是伟大的工作， 你才能怡然自得。如果你现在还没有找到， 那么继续找、不要停下来、全心全意的去找， 当你找到的时候你就会知道的。就像任何真诚的关系， 随着岁月的流逝只会越来越紧密。所以继续找，直到你找到它，不要停下来！我的第三个故事是关于死亡的。 当我十七岁的时候， 我读到了一句话：“如果你把每一天都当作生命中最后一天去生活的话，那么有一天你会发现你是正确的。 ”这句话给我留下了深刻的印象。从那时开始，过了 33 年，我在每天早晨都会对着镜子问自己：“如果今天是我生命中的最后一天， 你会不会完成你今天想做的事情呢？”当答案连续很多次被给予“不是”的时候， 我知道自己需要改变某些事情了。 “记住你即
