Scott Adams

1957–2026 · American cartoonist and author

Topics: creativity, engineering leadership, life, software engineering

• The hardest part of writing humor is finding a topic that hasn't already been used more times than the only back scratcher at the Institute of Very Itchy People.

  — Scott Adams

• There's a special word for bosses who care about their employees: unemployed.

  — Scott Adams

• If not for the compulsion of engineers, mankind would have never seen the wheel, settling instead for the trapezoid because some Neanderthal in Marketing convinced everybody it had great braking power.

  — Scott Adams

• Creativity doesn't require much time. But creativity always needs your energy. You can't create if you're pooped or your brain is full of junk. A person who manages creativity makes sure his schedule has lots of free spaces, no matter how many priorities are looming.

  — Scott Adams

• Identify someone who has more creative talent than you do, then try to imitate that person exactly.

  — Scott Adams

• For humor to work, it must be original.

  — Scott Adams

• The most important skill for any leader is the ability to take credit for things that happen on their own.

  — Scott Adams

• Don't judge people by their mistakes; rather, judge them by how they respond to their mistakes.

  — Scott Adams

• Technology magnifies the ability of one person to have a big impact on other people.

  — Scott Adams

• What are the odds that you live in exactly the window of human existence when all of the major optical illusions have been discovered?

  — Scott Adams

• Trying to win an argument with an irrational person is like trying to teach a cat to snorkel by providing written instructions. No matter how clear your instructions, it won't work. Your best strategy is to reduce the time you spend in that sort of situation.

  — Scott Adams

• A Mission Statement is defined as "a long awkward sentence that demonstrates management's inability to think clearly." All good companies have one.

  — Scott Adams

• A meeting is essentially a group of people staring at visual aids until the electrochemical activity in their brains ceases, at which point decisions are made.

  — Scott Adams

• When we are born, all humans are clueless, self-absorbed, and helpless. Most babies will grow out of it. Those who don't become managers.

  — Scott Adams

• If a topic makes you gag, or clench your buns, or laugh, or sigh, or retch -- or react physically in any way -- you have a winner.

  — Scott Adams

• Some humor experts say the secret to humor is to combine something unexpected with something bad and then make sure it's happening to someone else. But if that's all it took, serial killers would be winning comedy competitions.

  — Scott Adams

• If you're going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don't win, you're usually no worse off than if you hadn't played.

  — Scott Adams