Walter Isaacson Thinking Quotations

I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.

Smart people are a dime a dozen. What matters is the ability to think different... to think out of the box.

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved.

I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding.

When there are multiple versions of a story, you really have three ways to go. You can pick the most sensational version. You can try to balance things in your gut to get to what you think is the honest truth. Or you can err on the side of kindness.

What Einstein was able to do was - to use a cliche - think out of the box.

I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism.

I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental processing power - I've watched him use four different screens, process information, get to the right answer, boom boom boom.

I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong

I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of the quarter-hour ratings.

I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup in our parents' garage and try to create a business

I think it is valuable and should be valued by its consumers. Charging for content forces discipline on journalists: they must produce things that people actually value.

I think it's really good that you have great competition among news networks, and for that matter all the networks in general. It's bringing more and more people in to watching the news.

I think when you're looking for people to interview, you want to make it fair and honest. You're not just bringing people on so you can beat them up or, you know, make fools out of them or something

I think that genius comes not just from having great mental processing power. It comes from being able to, as Steve Jobs' ad said, think different.

I think that notion of being a seeker, somebody who never felt totally fulfilled, but was always passionate about the search, that comes from the background, probably.

The people who invented the twenty-first century were pot-smoking, sandal-wearing hippies from the West Coast like Steve, because they saw differently,” he said. "The hierarchical systems of the East Coast, England, Germany, and Japan do not encourage this different thinking. The sixties produced an anarchic mind-set that is great for imagining a world not yet in existence.

I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)

I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age.

He had the attitude that he could do anything, and therefore so can you. He put his life in my hands. So that made me do something I didn't think I could do.... If you trust him, you can do things. If he's decided that something should happen, then he's just going to make it happen. (Elizabeth Holmes)