Aaron Swartz Quotes

39 quotes in 652 categories

• Creativity comes from applying things you learn in other fields to the field you work in.
• Think deeply about things. Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the…
• Reality is painful -- it's so much easier to keep doing stuff you know you're good at or else to pick something so hard there's…
• Being around some of the bright lights of the technology world and having them expect great things helps you sit down and do it seriously.
• I don’t want to be happy. I just want to change the world.
• There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our…
• We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out…
• But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in…
• Steadfastness is a noble quality, but unguided by knowledge or humility, it becomes rashness, or obstinacy.
• With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge - we'll make it a thing…
• But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were…
• No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough.
• As the Internet breaks down the last justifications for a professional class of politicians, it also builds up the tools for replacing them.
• What is "this drive"? It's the tendency to not simply accept things as they are but to want to think about them, to understand them.…
• Books are totally useless unless you take their advice. If you just keep reading them, thinking "that's so insightful! that changes everything," but never actually…
• Most people's major life changes don't come from reading an article in the newspaper; they come from reading longer-form essays or thoughtful books, which are…
• Life is short ... so why waste it doing something dumb?
• The adults were completely wrong.
• There is no justice in following unjust laws.
• Now everyone has a license to speak, it’s a question of who gets heard.

Browse Aaron Swartz Quotes by Category