167 Quotes by Clay Shirky

If what you’re doing is valuable for people, they will find a way to pay you to keep doing it.

Prior to the internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table.

It is possible to think that the Internet will be a net positive for society while admitting that there are significant downsides – after all, it’s not a revolution if nobody loses.

Civic participants don’t aim to make life better merely for members of the group. They want to improve even the lives of people who never participate...

Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.

The future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from ‘Why publish this?’ to ‘Why not?

We’re not good at thinking fast. We are good at feeling fast.

We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it.