33 Quotes by Hugh MacLeod

You have to find your own shtick. A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven symphony always sounds like a Beethoven symphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own.

The old ways are dead. And you need people around you who concur. That means hanging out more with the creative people, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing. Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly. Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you anymore. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in Kindergarten, why fear them now?

GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS. THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.

..The stuff you learn beforehand will never be one-tenth as useful as the stuff you learn the hard way, on the job.

You do not own the molecules. They are stardust. They belong to God. What you do own is your soul. Nobody can take that away from you.

But Andrew was right about one thing. Human beings need to tell stories. Historically, it's the quickest way we have for transmitting useful information to other members of our species. Stories are not simply nice things to have; they are essential survival tools. And yes, the stories we tell ourselves are just as important as the stories we tell other people.

The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.

YOU DON’T KNOW IF YOUR IDEA IS ANY GOOD the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings isnot as easy as the optimists say it is. There’s a reason why feelings scare us—because what they tell us and what the rest of the world tells us are often two different things.