Quotes from George Lois

If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.

If you don't burn out at the end of each day, you're a bum.

Advertising, an art, is constantly besieged and compromised by logicians and technocrats, the scientists of our profession who wildly miss the main point about everything we do…

Look at the news stand, you know? I mean, it's a cacophony of famous people or people who want to be famous with blurbs all around it, and it's supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to be creativity in journalism. My God, it's unbelievable. It's shocking.

A graphic designer, you know, who understands ideas and understands that ideas are what makes the world go round, could change the world with a magazine. If one talent could do it right now, and everybody would stop saying it's the death of magazines.

Truly great images make all the other millions of images you look at unimportant. You gotta look at an image and understand it in a nanosecond.

What I taught myself was that in any problem you get, you've got to come up with an innovative, brilliant, kind of unusual, stunning solution.

To create great work, here's how you must spend your time: 1% Inspiration 9% Perspiration 90% Justification

Most people work at keeping their job, rather than doing a good job. If you're the former, you're leading a meaningless life. If you're the latter, keep up the good work.

If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.

Never, ever, work for bad people

I am in the poison gas business. Advertising should make you choke, make your eyes water, make you feel sick.

When you create advertising, always start with the words.

If you don't burn out at the end of each day, you're a bum.

In professional work - certainly in the arts and graphics - 99% of people have zero courage. They blow with the wind.

'Mad Men' is nothing more than the fulfillment of every possible stereotype of the early 1960s bundled up nicely to convince consumers that the sort of morally repugnant behavior exhibited by its characters - with one-night-stands and excessive consumption of Cutty Sark and Lucky Strikes - is glamorous and 'vintage.'

If you think people are dumb, you'll spend a lifetime doing dumb work.

The business world worships mediocrity. Officially we revere free enterprise, initiative and individuality. Unofficially we fear it.