Quote of the day
verified
You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.
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Confirmed by our editorial team.
We traced this quote to a primary published source and confirmed the words are genuinely the author's. You can cite it with confidence.
Source
Steve Jobs, Commencement Address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005 ("connecting the dots," first of three stories)
Editorial Note
We traced the full passage directly to Steve Jobs’s Stanford commencement address, delivered on June 12, 2005, and confirmed it against the complete transcript published by Stanford’s own news office, which remains the authoritative primary source. The passage appears in the first of Jobs’s three stories, “connecting the dots,” where he says: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” Jobs then continues by explaining that we have to trust the dots will somehow connect in the future, whether through “gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever,” because that belief gives us the confidence to follow our heart even when it leads us away from the well-worn path.
We traced this passage directly to Steve Jobs's Stanford commencement address delivered June 12, 2005, and confirmed it against the full transcript published by Stanford's own news office, which remains the authoritative primary source. The lines are drawn from the first of Jobs's three stories, "connecting the dots," and the video of the delivery is publicly available for line-by-line verification. We found no credible claim that anyone other than Jobs authored these words, and one stray note suggesting a 2012 or TED origin does not hold up against the well-documented 2005 Stanford record. Reports that speechwriter Aaron Sorkin contributed to the address are overstated: Jobs approached Sorkin in early 2005, but by Sorkin's own account his involvement was limited to correcting typos, and Jobs drafted the speech himself.
The canonical quote as displayed preserves only the opening two sentences. The full passage as delivered reads: "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference."
For publication we would recommend quoting the Stanford transcript directly, but the attribution to Jobs is unambiguous.
We traced this passage directly to Steve Jobs's Stanford commencement address delivered June 12, 2005, and confirmed it against the full transcript published by Stanford's own news office, which remains the authoritative primary source. The lines are drawn from the first of Jobs's three stories, "connecting the dots," and the video of the delivery is publicly available for line-by-line verification. We found no credible claim that anyone other than Jobs authored these words, and one stray note suggesting a 2012 or TED origin does not hold up against the well-documented 2005 Stanford record. Reports that speechwriter Aaron Sorkin contributed to the address are overstated: Jobs approached Sorkin in early 2005, but by Sorkin's own account his involvement was limited to correcting typos, and Jobs drafted the speech himself.
The canonical quote as displayed preserves only the opening two sentences. The full passage as delivered reads: "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference."
For publication we would recommend quoting the Stanford transcript directly, but the attribution to Jobs is unambiguous.
