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.
Walter IsaacsonI think America is really well-positioned, because we do train people to be creative and sometimes resist authority, which helps in being an innovator. I think you're going to see for the next phase of the revolution all sorts of wonderful ways of connecting art and literature and journalism into new forms of digital expression.
Walter IsaacsonLeonardo da Vinci did not take received wisdom - whether from ancient classical thinkers or medieval scholars or from the Bible - without questioning it. And this was the beginning of the scientific method. This is another lesson for our time: that when we have evidence that contradicts a certain belief, we should be willing to change it. I think this made Leonardo, in some ways, a person who better understood the beauty of God's creation than a person who just takes all received wisdom from the Bible on faith.
Walter IsaacsonLeonardo da Vinci was lucky to be born the same year that Johannes Gutenberg opened his printing shop. As a young person, he could get information about whatever struck his curiosity. The Internet is to our age what Gutenberg's press was to his, so he would have loved being alive today.
Walter Isaacson