October 16, 2007
Posted by Ryan Graves
Teddy Roo, Yossi, Arrington.
If it takes more than this poster to motivate you, try this…
Yossi Vardi, (an original investor in ICQ) quoted a Theodore Roosevelt speech from 1910 in a discussion held a TechCrunch40 last month to draw a parallel to today’s entrepreneur.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Michael Arrington had some very inspiring words regarding entrepreneurship on his blog TechCrunch and he also discussed when Vardi gave the speech here. If you’d like to see the entire speech you can read it here.
