Seth Godin

“The object of the new school is to teach reasonable doubt. Not the unreasonable doubt of the wild-eyed heckler, but the evidence-based doubt of the questioning scientist and the reason-based doubt of the skilled debater.”

“The challenge is this: training creative, independent, and innovative artists is new to us.”

“Passion can overcome fear - the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.”

“Transparency in the traditional school might destroy it.”

“Group projects are the exception in school, but they should be the norm.”

“We need students who can learn how to learn, who can discover how to push themselves and are generous enough and honest enough to engage with the outside world to make those dreams happen.”

“We do not need to teach students to embrace the status quo.”

“If all we do with these tools is teach compliance and consumption, that's all we're going to get. School can and must do more than train the factory workers of tomorrow.”

“What is school for? If you're not asking that, you're wasting time and money.”

“Learning is not done to you, it is something you choose to do.”

“Being surrounded by educated people makes democracy stronger, and it benefits our entire economy.”

“The current (educational) structure, which seeks low-cost uniformity that meets minimum standards, is killing our economy, our culture, and us.”

“As soon as we associate reading with a test, we've missed the point.”

“It’s okay. Let your ego push you to be the initiator. But tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does.”

“The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by. The challenge is getting into the habit of”

“As our society gets more complex and our people get more complacent, the role of the jester is more vital than ever before. Please stop sitting around. We need you to make a ruckus.”

“Yes, I think it's okay to abandon the big, established, stuck tribe. It's okay to say to them, "You're not going where I need to go, and there's no way I'm going to persuade all of you to follow me. So rather than standing here watching the opportunities fade away, I'm heading off. I'm betting some of you, the best of you, will follow me.”

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from.”

“We need librarians more than we ever did. What we don't need are mere clerks who guard dead paper. Librarians are too important to be a dwindling voice in our culture. For the right librarian, this is the chance of a lifetime.”

“Librarians who are arguing and lobbying for clever e-book lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending the library-as-warehouse concept, as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher, and impresario.”

“The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.”

“No one knows more about the way you think than you do.”

“Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it”

“The market ... demands a signal from you that you're serious, powerful, accepted, and safe.”

“The Dip creates scarcity; scarcity creates value”

“Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources”

“The Cul-de-Sac ( French for "dead end" ) ... is a situation where you work and work and work and nothing much changes”

“Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations”

“The people who are the best in the world specialize at getting really good at the questions they don't know.”

“If your feet are in two buckets and the average temperature of the water is 90 degrees, you’re probably fine—unless one bucket is at 35 and the other is at 145 degrees. On average, you’re fine. Based on variation, though, you’re miserable.”

“In a battle between  two ideas, the best one doesn't necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.”

“Difference between TV and the internet was how far you sat from the screen. TV was an 8 foot activity, and you were a consumer. The internet was a 16 inch activity, and you participated. I think the sitting down thing is similar. You're not going to buy an armoir while standing on the subway.”

“Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

“It's clearly more fun to make the rules than to follow them. ~ Seth Godin”

“For many of us, the happiest future is one that's precisely like the past, except a little better”

“believe that giving up is the same thing as being realistic.”

“Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.”

“...treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.”

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth.   Not going all the way, and not starting.”   Siddhrtha Gautama”

“Starting isn’t like that. Starting something is not an event; it’s a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That’s starting. You spend the rest of the day walking toward Cleveland, one step at a time, picking your feet up and putting them down. At the end of the day, twenty miles later, you stop at a hotel. And what happens the next morning? Either you quit the project or you start again, walking to Cleveland. In fact, every step is a new beginning. Sure, you’re closer than you were yesterday or last week, but you’re still...”

“Initiative and starting are about neither of these. They are about “let’s see” and “try.” If there’s no clear right answer, perhaps the thing you ought to do is something new. Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated.”

“People have come to the erroneous conclusion that if they’re not willing to start something separate, world-changing, and risky, they have no business starting anything. Somehow, we’ve fooled ourselves into believing that the project has to have a name, a building, and a stock ticker symbol to matter.”

“People don't believe what you tell them.They rarely believe what you show them.They often believe what their friends tell them.They always believe what they tell themselves.”

“Art is what we call...the thing an artist does.It's not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human.Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.”

“Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.”

“An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.”

“Art is never defect-free. Things that are remarkable never meet spec, because that would make them standardized, not worth talking about.”

“A brilliant author or businesswoman or senator or software engineer is brilliant only in tiny bursts. The rest of the time, they’re doing work that most any trained person could do.”

“If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.”

“Art changes posture and posture changes innocent bystanders.”