think... just think

Youth
Youth is not a time of life,
it is a state of mind,
it is not a matter of rosy cheeks,
red lips and supple knees;
it is a matter of the will,
a quality of the imagination,
a vigor of the emotions;
it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means the temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,
of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.
This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty.
Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.
We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin,
but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self distrust bows the heart
and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen,
there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder,
the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next,
and the joy of the game of living.

In the center of your heart and my heart
there is a wireless station;
so long as it receives messages of beauty,
hope, cheer, courage
and power from men and from the Infinite,
so long are you young.
When the aerials are down,
and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism
and the ice of pessimism,
then you are grown old, even at twenty.
But as long as your aerials are up,
to catch waves of optimism,
there is hope you may die
young at eighty.

- Konosuke Matsushita's favorite poem,
Excerpted from John P. Kotter's Matsushita Leadership

Apple campaign of 1997

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.