求知若飢，虛心若愚（ Stay Hungry , Stay
Foolish）
Apple CEO Steve Jobs 對史丹佛畢業生演講全文
今天，很榮幸來到各位從世界上最好的學校之一畢業的畢業典
禮上。我從來沒從大學畢業過，說實話，這是我離大學畢業最
近的一刻。今天，我只說三個故事，不談大道理，三個故事就
好。
第一個故事，是關於人生中的點點滴滴如何串連在一起。我在
里德學院（Reed College）待了六個月就辦休學了。 到我退學
前，一共休學了十八個月。那麼，我為什麼休學？（聽眾笑）
這得從我出生前講起。
我的親生母親當時是個研究生，年輕未婚媽媽，她決定讓別人
收養我。她強烈覺得應該讓有大學畢業的人收養我，所以我出
生時，她就準備讓我被一對律師夫婦收養。 但是這對夫妻到
了最後一刻反悔了，他們想收養女孩。所以在等待收養名單上
的一對夫妻，我的養父母，在一天半夜裡接到一通電話， 問
他們「有一名意外出生的男孩 ，你們要認養他嗎？」而他們
的回答是「當然要」。
後來，我的生母發現，我現在的媽媽從來沒有大學畢業， 我
現在的爸爸則連高中畢業也沒有。 她拒絕在認養文件上做最
後簽字。直到幾個月後，我的養父母保證將來一定會讓我上大
學，她的態度才軟化。
十七年後，我上大學了。但是當時我無知地選了一所學費幾乎
跟史丹佛一樣貴的大學（聽眾笑），我那工人階級的父母將所
有積蓄都花在我的學費上。六個月後，我看不出唸這個書的價
值何在。那時候，我不知道這輩子要幹什麼，也不知道唸大學
能對我有什麼幫助，只知道我為了唸這個書，花光了我父母這
輩子的所有積蓄。所以，我決定休學，相信船到橋頭自然直。
當時這個決定看來相當可怕，可是現在看來，那是我這輩子做
過最好的決定之一。（聽眾笑）
當我休學之後，我再也不用上我沒興趣的必修課，把時間拿去
聽那些我有興趣的課。這一點也不浪漫。 我沒有宿舍，所以
我睡在友人家裡的地板上，靠著回收可樂空罐的退費五分錢買
吃的。每個星期天晚上得走七哩的路，繞過大半個鎮 去印度
教的 Hare Krishna 神廟吃頓好料，我喜歡 Hare Krishna 神廟的
好料。就這樣追隨我的好奇與直覺，大部分我所投入過的事
務，後來看來都成了無比珍貴的經歷（And much of what I
stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be
舉個例來說。當時里德學院有著大概是全國最好的書寫教育。
校園內的每一張海報上，每個抽屜的標籤上，都是美麗的手寫
字。因為我休學了，可以不照正常選課程序來，所以我跑去上
書寫課。 我學了 serif 與 sanserif 字體，學到在不同字母組合間
變更字間距，學到活字印刷偉大的地方。 書寫的美好、歷史
感與藝術感是科學所無法掌握的，我覺得這很迷人。我沒預期
過學這些東西能在我生活中起些什麼實際作用，不過十年後，
當我在設計第一台麥金塔時，我想起了當時所學的東西，所以
把這些東西都設計進了麥金塔裡，這是第一台能印刷出漂亮東
西的電腦。 如果我沒沉溺於那樣一門課裡，麥金塔可能就不
會有多重字體跟等比例間距字體了。 又因為 Windows 抄襲了
麥金塔的使用方式（聽眾鼓掌大笑）。
因此，如果當年我沒有休學，沒有去上那門書寫課，大概所有
的個人電腦都不會有這些東西，印不出現在我們看到的漂亮的
字來了。當然，當我還在大學裡時，不可能把這些點點滴滴預
先串連在一起，但在十年後的今天回顧，一切就顯得非常清
楚。
我再說一次，你無法預先把點點滴滴串連起來；只有在未來回
顧時， 你才會明白那些點點滴滴是如何串在一起的（ you can't
connect the dots look-ing forward; you can only connect them looking
backwards ）。所以你得相信，眼前你經歷的種種，將來多少
會連結在一起。你得信任某個東西，直覺也好， 命運也好，
生命也好，或者業力。這種作法從來沒讓我失望，我的人生因
此變得完全不同。（ Jobs停下來喝水）
我的第二個故事，是有關愛與失去。
我很幸運－年輕時就發現自己愛做什麼事。我二十歲時，跟
Steve Wozniak 在我爸媽的車庫裡開始了蘋果電腦的事業。
我們拚命工作，蘋果電腦在十年間從一間車庫裡的兩個小夥子
擴展 ! 成了一家員工超過四千人、市價二十億美金的公司。在
那事件之前一年推出了我們最棒的作品－麥金塔電腦
（ Macintosh ），那時我才剛邁入三十歲；然後，我被解僱
了。 我怎麼會被自己創辦的公司給解僱了？（聽眾笑）
嗯，當蘋果電腦成長後，我請了一個我以為在經營公司上很有
才幹的傢伙來，他在頭幾年也確實幹得不錯。可是我們對未來
的願景不同，最後只好分道揚鑣，董事會站在他那邊，就這樣
在我 30歲的時候，公開把我給解僱了。
我失去了整個生活的重心，我的人生就這樣被摧毀。有幾個
月，我不知道要做些什麼。我覺得我令企業界的前輩們失望－
我把他們交給我的接力棒弄丟了。 我見了創辦 HP 的 David
Packard跟創辦Intel的 Bob Noyce，跟他們說很抱歉我把事情給
搞砸了。我成了公眾眼中失敗的示範，我甚至想要離開矽谷。
但是漸漸的，我發現，我還是喜愛那些我做過的事情，在蘋果
電腦中經歷的那些事絲毫沒有改變我愛做的事。
雖然我被否定了，可是我還是愛做那些事情，所以我決定從頭
來過 。 當時我沒發現，但現在看來，被蘋果電腦開除，是我
所經歷過最好的事情。成功的沉重被從頭來過的輕鬆所取代，
每件事情都不那麼確定，讓我自由進入這輩子最有創意的年
代。接下來五年，我開了一家叫做 NeXT 的公司，又開一家叫
做 Pixar 的公司，也跟後來的老婆（Laurene）談起了戀愛。
Pixar接著製作了世界上第一部全電腦動畫電影，玩具總動員
（ Toy Story），現在是世界上最成功的動畫製作公司（聽眾
鼓掌大笑）。
然後，蘋果電腦買下了 NeXT，我回到了蘋果，我們在 NeXT
發展的技術成了蘋果電腦後來復興的核心部份。我也有了個美
妙的家庭。我很確定，如果當年蘋果電腦沒開除我，就不會發
生這些事情。
這帖藥很苦口，可是我想蘋果電腦這個病人需要這帖藥。 有
時候，人生會用 磚頭打你的頭。不要喪失信心。
我確信我愛我所做的事情， 這就是這些年來支持我繼續走下
去的唯一理由（I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going
was that I loved what I did ）。
你得找出你的最愛，工作上是如此，人生伴侶也是如此。 你
的工作將佔掉你人生的一大部分，唯一真正獲得滿足的方法就
是做你相信是偉大的工作，而唯一做偉大工作的方法是 愛你
所做的事（ And the only way to do great work is to love what you
do ）。
如果你還沒找到這些事，繼續找，別停頓。盡你全心全力，你
知道你一定會找到。而且，如同任何偉大的事業，事情只會隨
著時間愈來愈好。所以，在你找到之前，繼續找，別停頓。
（聽眾鼓掌， Jobs 喝水）
我的第三個故事，是關於死亡。
當我十七歲時，我讀到一則格言，好像是「把每一天都當成生
命中的最後一天，你就會輕鬆自在。（ If you live each day as if
it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right ）」（聽眾
笑） 這對我影響深遠， 在過去 33 年裡，我每天早上都會照鏡
子，自問：「如果今天是此生最後一日，我今天要做些什
麼？」 每當我連續太多天都得到一個「沒事做」的答案時，
我就知道我必須有所改變了。 提醒自己快死了，是我在人生
中面臨重大決定時，所用過最重要的方法。因為幾乎每件事－
所有外界期望、所有的名聲、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼－在面
對死亡時，都消失了，只有最真實重要的東西才會留下
（ Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've
ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of
death, leaving only what is truly important ）。
提醒自己快死了，是我所知避免掉入畏懼失去的陷阱裡最好的
方法。人生不帶來、死不帶去，沒理由不能順心而為。一年
前，我被診斷出癌症。我在早上七點半作斷層掃瞄，在胰臟清
楚出現一個腫瘤，我連胰臟是什麼都不知道。醫生告訴我，那
幾乎可以確定是一種不治之症，預計我大概活不到三到六個月
了。醫生建議我回家，好好跟親人們聚一聚，這是醫生對臨終
病人的標準建議。
那代表你得試著在幾個月內把你將來十年想跟小孩講的話講
完。那代表你得把每件事情搞定，家人才會儘量輕鬆。那代表
你得跟人說再見了。我整天想著那個診斷結果，那天晚上做了
一次切片，從喉嚨伸入一個內視鏡，穿過胃進到腸子，將探針
伸進胰臟，取了一些腫瘤細胞出來。
我打了鎮靜劑，不醒人事，但是我老婆在場。她後來跟我說，
當醫生們用顯微鏡看過那些細胞後，他們都哭了，因為那是非
常少見的一種胰臟癌，可以用手術治好。所以我接受了手術，
康復了。（聽眾鼓掌）
這是我最接近死亡的時候，我希望那會繼續是未來幾十年內最
接近的一次。經歷此事後，我可以比先前死亡只是純粹想像
時，要能更肯定地告訴你們下面這些：沒有人想死。即使那些
想上天堂的人，也想活著上天堂 。 （聽眾笑）但是死亡是我
們共同的終點，沒有人逃得過。這是註定的，因為死亡很可能
就是生命中最棒的發明，是生命交替的媒介，送走老人們，給
新生代開出道路。
現在你們是新生代，但是不久的將來，你們也會逐漸變老，被
送出人生的舞台。抱歉講得這麼戲劇化，但是這是真的。你們
的時間有限，所以不要浪費時間活在別人的生活裡。不要被教
條所侷限 -- 盲從教條就是活在別人思考結果裡。不要讓別人
的意見淹沒了你內在的心聲。最重要的，擁有追隨自己內心與
直覺的勇氣，你的內心與直覺多少已經知道你真正想要成為什
麼樣的人（have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They
somehow already know what you truly want to become），任何其他
事物都是次要的。（聽眾鼓掌）
在我年輕時，有本神奇的雜誌叫做 《 Whole Earth Catalog》，
當年這可是我們的經典讀物。那是位住在離這不遠的 Menlo
Park 的Stewart Brand發行的，他把雜誌辦得很有詩意。那是
1960年代末期，個人電腦跟桌上出版還沒出現，所有內容都是
打字機、剪刀跟拍立得相機做出來的。 雜誌內容有點像印在
紙上的平面 Google，在 Google 出現之前 35年就有了：這本雜
誌很理想主義，充滿新奇工具與偉大的見解。
Stewart 跟他的團隊出版了好幾期的《 Whole Earth Catalog》，
然後很自然的，最後出了停刊號。當時是 1970 年代中期，我
正是你們現在這個年齡的時候。在停刊號的封底，有張清晨鄉
間小路的照片，那種你四處搭便車冒險旅行時會經過的鄉間小
路。在照片下印了行小字：
求知若飢，虛心若愚（Stay Hungry , Stay Foolish ）。
那是他們親筆寫下的告別訊息，我總是以此自許。 當你們畢
業，展開新生活，我也以此祝福你們。
求知若飢，虛心若愚（Stay Hungry , Stay Foolish ）。
非常謝謝大家。（聽眾起立鼓掌二分鍾）
--------------------------------------------------
Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Steve Jobs says
061505.html
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of
Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June
12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of
the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college.
Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college
graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's
it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed
around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So
why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed
college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.
She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so
everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his
wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute
that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting
list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an
unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My
biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated
from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.
She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few
months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to
college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college
that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class
parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six
months, I couldn't see the value in it. 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. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved
their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all
work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was
one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I
could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin
dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor
in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy
food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday
night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved
it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and
intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one
example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy
instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every
label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I
had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided
to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif
and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between
different letter combinations, about what makes great typography
great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that
science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.
But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh
computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac.
It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never
dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never
had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since
Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer
would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never
dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not
have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was
impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.
But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only
connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots
will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -
your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let
me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I
started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard,
and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage
into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just
released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had
just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a
company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I
thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the
first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future
began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did,
our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very
publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone,
and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let
the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the
baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob
Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very
public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley.
But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did.
The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been
rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was
the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of
being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner
again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most
creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another
company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who
would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first
computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most
successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of
events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology
we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance.
And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired
from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient
needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose
faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I
loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true
for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large
part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what
you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to
love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't
settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the
years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live
each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right."
It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I
have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today
were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do
today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in
a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever
encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost
everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of
death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are
going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you
have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not
to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in
the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't
even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost
certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to
live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go
home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to
die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have
the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make
sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for
your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy,
where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach
and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few
cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told
me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors
started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic
cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the
closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can
now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a
useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't
want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share.
No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death
is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change
agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the
new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually
become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is
quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't
be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's
thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own
inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your
heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want
to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The
Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It
was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in
Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in
the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so
it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was
sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came
along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great
notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth
Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.
It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their
final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the
kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so
adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay
Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you
graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
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