“If you want to make money, you tend to be forced to work on problems that are too nasty for anyone to… — Paul Graham Money Copy Share Image
“The stated purpose of schools is to educate the kids. But there is no external pressure to do this well.” — Paul Graham Education Copy Share Image
Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired. — Paul Graham Business Copy Share Image
“There are few sources of energy so powerful as a procrastinating college student.” — Paul Graham College student Copy Share Image
“if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself.” — Paul Graham Imagine Copy Share Image
“The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it.” — Paul Graham Creation Copy Share Image
“Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens.” — Paul Graham Prisons Copy Share Image
“Good design looks easy. Like great athletes, great designers make it look easy. Mostly this is an illusion.” — Paul Graham Designers Copy Share Image
We don't have to go that far to sell our beer because our immediate accounts sell so much. Places that sold 10… — Paul Graham Accounts Copy Share Image
“Unknowing imitation is almost a recipe for bad design. If you don’t know where your ideas are coming from, you’re probably imitating… — Paul Graham Imitating Copy Share Image
“We need a language that lets us scribble and smudge and smear, not a language where you have to sit with a… — Paul Graham Communication Copy Share Image
“Cobol, for all its sometime popularity, does not seem to have any intellectual descendants. It is an evolutionary dead- end a Neanderthal… — Paul Graham Cobol Copy Share Image
“People who write about politics, whether on the left or the right, have a consistent bias: they take politics seriously.” — Paul Graham Politics Copy Share Image
“You can't distinguish your group by doing things that are rational and believing things that are true. If you want to set… — Paul Graham Doing things Copy Share Image
If you could replace high-school yearbooks, that could be a lot of money. It's so clearly waiting for someone to come along. — Paul Graham Along Copy Share Image
“We often like to think of World War II as a triumph of freedom over totalitarianism. We conveniently forget that the Soviet… — Paul Graham Freedom Copy Share Image
“Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving. So choose… — Paul Graham Irony Copy Share Image
“The government spying on people doesn’t literally make programmers write worse code. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad… — Paul Graham Bad idea Copy Share Image
“It's important for nerds to realize, too, that school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half… — Paul Graham Education Copy Share Image
“This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you're trying to decide… — Paul Graham Decide Copy Share Image
“Suppose you are a little, nimble guy being chased by a big, fat, bully. You open a door and find yourself in… — Paul Graham Bullying Copy Share Image
“Could civil liberties really be a cause, rather than just an effect? I think so. I think a society in which people… — Paul Graham Civil liberties Copy Share Image
“To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power. A confident group doesn’t need taboos to… — Paul Graham Taboo Copy Share Image
“Intellectual curiosity was not one of the motives on the FBI’s list. Indeed, the whole concept seemed foreign to them. Those in… — Paul Graham Cybersecurity Copy Share Image
“If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win. Big companies… — Paul Graham Big companies Copy Share Image
For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete. — Paul Graham Ambitious Copy Share Image
“If Apple were to grow the iPod into a cell phone with a web browser, Microsoft would be in big trouble.” — Paul Graham Apple Copy Share Image
“A lot of the statements that got people in trouble seem harmless now.” — Paul Graham Harmless Copy Share Image
“Introducing change is like pulling off a bandage : the pain is a memory as soon as you feel it.” — Paul Graham Change Copy Share Image
“I don’t predict the demise of object-oriented programming, by the way. Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code.” — Paul Graham Programming Copy Share Image
“It’s easier to get people to fight for an idea. And whichever side wins, their ideas will also be considered to have… — Paul Graham God Wanted Copy Share Image
Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'. — Paul Graham Business Copy Share Image
“I'm not saying there's no such thing as genius. But if you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you… — Paul Graham Genius Copy Share Image
“If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a project forward the same way your two legs drive a… — Paul Graham Forward Copy Share Image
“So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade… — Paul Graham Family Copy Share Image
“And the reason everyone doesn’t use Listp is that programming languages are not merely technologies, but habits of mind as well, and… — Paul Graham Habits Copy Share Image
What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is… — Paul Graham Build Copy Share Image
A programming language is for thinking about programs, not for expressing programs you've already thought of. It should be a pencil, not… — Paul Graham About Copy Share Image
When Facebook first started, and it was just a social directory for undergrads at Harvard, it would have seemed like such a… — Paul Graham Bad Copy Share Image
It's hard to say exactly what it is about face-to-face contact that makes deals happen, but whatever it is, it hasn't yet… — Paul Graham About Copy Share Image
