The Last Lecture is an awe-inspiring journey of a dying professor who shares his ultimate life lessons.
His enlightening manifesto reveals the path to achieving your dreams, overcoming obstacles, and cherishing every moment.
Discover the power of resilience, passion, and legacy as you delve into this remarkable story that transforms your thoughts about life.
“Engineering isn’t about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Introduction, Page X
The Last Lecture Quotes With Page Numbers Part 1
“Throughout my academic career, I’d given some pretty good talks. But being considered the best speaker in the computer science department is like being known as the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 1, Page 6
“An injured lion wants to know if he can still roar.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 1, Page 8
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 3, Page 17
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 3, Page 17
“Never make a decision until you have to.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 4, Page 23
“Just because you’re in the driver’s seat, doesn’t mean you have to run people over.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 4, Page 23
“Kids need to know their parents love them. Their parents don’t need to be alive for that to happen.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 4, Page 26
The Last Lecture Part 2 Quotes
“Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms,as a favor to me, let them do it. It’ll be OK.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 5, Page 30
“You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 7, Page 36
“Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?” he said.
I could barely muster a “yeah.”
That’s a good thing,” the assistant told me. When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they’ve given up on you.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 7, Pages 36, 37
“There’s a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It’s not something you can give; it’s something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can’t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 7, Page 37
“When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore that means they’ve given up on you…you may not want to hear it but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you and want to make you better.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 7, Page 37
“If I work hard enough, there will be things I can do tomorrow that I can’t do today.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 7, Page 37
“I was hugely impressed… was the ultimate example of a man who knew what he didn’t know, was perfectly willing to admit it, and didn’t want to leave until he understood. That’s heroic to me.
I wish every grad student had that attitude.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 9, Page 45
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 11, Page 51
The Last Lecture Part 3 Quotes
“People are more important than things.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 15, Page 70
“Look, I’m going to find a way to be happy, and I’d really love to be happy with you, but if I can’t be happy with you, then I’ll find a way to be happy without you.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 16, Page 78
“Not everything needs to be fixed.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 18, Page 87
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 19, Page 88
“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse. At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 19, Page 88
The Last Lecture Part 4 Quotes
“Randy Pausch on time management:
Here’s what I know:
Time must be explicitly managed, like money.
You can always change your plan, but only if you have one.
Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things?
Develop a good filing system.
Rethink the telephone.
Delegate.
Take a time out.
…Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 23, Page 108
“You can always change your plan, but only if you have one.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 23, Page 108
“Want to have a short phone call with someone? Call them at 11:55 a.m., right before lunch. They’ll talk fast. You may think you are interesting, but you are not more interesting than lunch.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 23, Pages 109-10
“It’s a thrill to fulfill your own childhood dreams, but as you get older, you may find that enabling the dreams of others is even more fun.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 25, Page 117
“I know you’re smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn’t enough. The kind of people I want on my research team are those who will help everyone feel happy to be here. ”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 25, Page 118
“Luck is indeed where preparation meets opportunity. ”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 25, Page 119
The Last Lecture Part 5 Quotes
“Give yourself permission to dream. Fuel your kids’ dreams too. Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay up past their bedtimes.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 28, Page 132
“Complaining does not work as a strategy. ”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 32, Page 139
“Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 32, Page 139
“Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I’ve always believed that if you took one tenth the enrgy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 32, Page 139
“When you’re frustrated with people, when they’ve made you angry, it just may be because you haven’t given them enough time. Jon warned me that sometimes this took great patience—
even years. “But in the end,” he said, “people will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out.”~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 36, Page 145
“When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 37, Page 146
“It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you get hit…and keep moving forward.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 38, Page 147
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 39, Page 148
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted .”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 39, Page 148
“The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 39, Page 149
“A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 43, Page 156
“All my adult life I’ve felt drawn to ask long-married couples how they were able to stay together. All of them said the same thing: “We worked hard at it.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 43, Page 156
“If you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out… Complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals. And it won’t make us happier.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 32, Page 158
“Go out and do for others what somebody did for you.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 44, Page 158
“I’ve always admired people who are over-prepared.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 46, Page 160
“Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I’m a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it ‘the eaten by wolves factor.’ If I do something, what’s the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 46, Page 160-61
“One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 44, Pages 160-61
“Proper apologies have three parts:
1) What I did was wrong.
2) I feel badly that I hurt you.
3) How do I make this better?”~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 47, Page 162
“There is more than one way to measure profits and losses.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 50, Page 168
“No job is beneath you.
…
You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom And when you get there, here’s what you do: Be really great at sorting mail. ”~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 51, Pages 168-69
“Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things?
…
Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.”~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 23, Pages 168-71
“No job should, be beneath us. And if you can’t(or won’t) sort mail, Where is the proof that you can do anything?”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 51, Page 169
“We’ve placed a lot of emphasis in this country on the idea of people’s rights. That’s how it should be, but it makes no sense to talk about rights without also talking about responsibilities.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 54, Page 175
“When we’re connected to others, we become better people.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 54, Page 176
“Make a Decision: Tigger or Eeyore “
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 56, Page 179
“What is the most appropriate thing to say to a friend who was about to die. He answered:”tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Whenever he goes, you also g. He will not be alone”.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 58, Page 185
The Last Lecture Part 6 Quotes
“But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I’d always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 59, Page 193
“Focus on other people, not on yourself.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 60, Page 199
“Put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 60, Page 200
“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 41, Page 251
“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life, … If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 61, Pages 265-66
“The questions are always more important than the answers.”
~Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture, Chapter 59, Page 295