Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

-- Steve Jobs, Stanford University Commencement Speech, 2005

Here is a piece my friend Lonnie wrote for Cult of Mac last month after Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO: "Forget Man Of The Year, Jobs Is Man Of The Century."

Or, as the Onion put it, "Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing."