Randy Pausch Quotes

Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.

If she doesn't really love you, then it's over. And if she does love you, then love will win out.

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

If you have a question, then find the answer.

The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.

The size of your audience doesn't matter. What's important is that your audience is listening.

He had high hopes for society, and though his hopes were too often dashed, he remained a raging optimist.

Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short-term, earnest is long term.

If I was able to tell my story with the passion I felt, my lecture might help others find a path to fulfilling their own dreams.

No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.

Engineering isn't about perfect solutions; it's about doing the best you can with limited resources.

Brick walls are there for reason. And once you get over them-- even if someone has practically had to throw you over-- it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it.

One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.

Complaining does not work as a strategy.

Sometimes you can't pay it back, so you just have to pay it forward.

Throughout my academic career, I'd given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs.

somehow, with the passage of time, and the dealines that life imposes, surrending became the right thing to do

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

It's interesting, the secrets you decide to reveal at the end of your life.

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

If nobody ever worried about what was in other people's heads, we’d all be 33 percent more effective in our lives and our jobs.

I'm dying, and I'm having fun.

It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not.

Walls aren't put in our life to stop us, they are there to test how much we really want somthing.

if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.

It's a thrill to fulfill your own childhood dreams, but as you get older, you may find that enabling the dreams of others is even more fun.

You can't get there alone. People have to help you, and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth, by being earnest.

A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.

Remember how quickly our field [computer science] changes. That's why you want to focus on learning things that don't change: how to work well with other people, how to carefully assess a client's real - as opposed to perceived - needs, and things like that.

Well, you can’t have just some of me, Jai,” I told her. “You appreciate the part of me that didn’t get angry because two ‘things’ we own got hurt. But the flip side of that is my belief that you don’t repair things if they still do what they’re supposed to do. The cars still work. Let’s just drive ’em.

Apologies are not pass/fail.

If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, 'Tell the truth.' If I got three more words, I'd add: 'All the time.'

Look for the best in everybody

People lie for lots of reasons, often because it seems like a way to get what they want with less effort.

Its important to have specific dreams. Dream Big. Dream without fear.

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.

If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

Never lose the child-like wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us. Help others.

Look, I'm going to find a way to be happy, and I'd really love to be happy with you, but if I can't be happy with you, then I'll find a way to be happy without you.

If I work hard enough, there will be things I can do tomorrow that I can't do today.

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.

It's easy to be smart when you are parodying smart people.

Your patience will be both appreciated and rewarded

Randy Pausch on time management: Here's what I know: Time must be explicitly managed, like money. You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? Develop a good filing system. Rethink the telephone. Delegate. Take a time out. Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

One key factor in the downward spiral in our educational system is that there is too much stroking and too little real feedback.