Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Genuine
Yes. In Commencement address at Stanford University (2005), Third story, about death, paragraph beginning “Your time is limited”.
Checked against Steve Jobs, commencement address at Stanford University, 12 June 2005; published transcript in Make Something Wonderful, Steve Jobs Archive, section “Commencement Address at Stanford University”, in a full-text transcription.
- Work
- Commencement address at Stanford University, 2005
- Where
- Third story, about death, paragraph beginning “Your time is limited”
- Source
- Steve Jobs, commencement address at Stanford University, 12 June 2005; published transcript in Make Something Wonderful, Steve Jobs Archive, section “Commencement Address at Stanford University”
- Checked
- In a full-text transcription
Researched by AI. Entry updated 24 October 2026. Editorial review: pending. How we check
About this quote
The scene
Jobs’s third story to Stanford’s graduates concerns mortality and his experience of a cancer diagnosis. After describing death as a force that makes room for a new generation, he turns to the graduates’ own decisions. The sentences that follow warn against inherited thinking and the pressure of other people’s opinions, and urge attention to one’s own heart and intuition.
What it means
Because life is finite, one should not spend it merely conforming to other people’s expectations.
Topics
Related quotes
- there is no such obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses today while it is depending on the morrow. Seneca the Younger
- No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such. Marcus Aurelius
- One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Friedrich Nietzsche
- It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. (paraphrase) Marcus Aurelius
- And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
Sources
Cite it
Steve Jobs, Commencement address at Stanford University (2005), Third story, about death, paragraph beginning “Your time is limited”. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/your-time-is-limited/ (24 October 2026).
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Checked by people
People who checked this entry against its source, under their own names. Their checks do not change the verdict: an editor reviews every entry.
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