Economist and philosopher; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 1998
This was a co-educational school, with many progressive features.
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 1998
One question · 6 of 10 answers to it
What is the most overrated virtue?
Novelist and essayist
I also knew that victimhood is not a virtue. That being discriminated against does not make you somehow morally better.
Recorded · Wellesley College · 2015
Designer; host of Design Matters; founder of the SVA branding programme
one of the things that I learned from doing Design Matters from my guest Danny Shapiro, and I think I mentioned this in part one of my interview with Tim; confidence is overrated.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2018
44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
Security. People naturally resist change in our personal lives.
Recorded · ABC News · 2011
Creator of the Linux kernel and of Git
I've actually felt slightly uncomfortable at TED for the last two days, because there's a lot of vision going on, right? And I am not a visionary. I do not have a five-year plan.
Recorded · TED (transcript of the TED2016 interview) · 2016
First Lady of the United States 1933–1945; United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly 1945–1952; Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights 1946–1951
Tolerance ought only to be a preliminary step which allows us to get to know other people, and which prevents us from setting up bars, just because they may be of a different race or…
Recorded · Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, The George Washington University · 1943
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?
Spiritual teacher and author
everyone saw me as a victim of a terrible illness. But what happened to my body was far less frightening than what happened to my soul. The stroke wiped out my faith.
Recorded · The New York Times Magazine · 2000
Neurobiologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1986
The two alternatives left then to us were either to emigrate to the United States, or to pursue some activity that needed neither support nor connection with the outside Aryan world where…
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 1986
British Formula One driver
For me, school was probably the most traumatising and most difficult part of my life. I already was being bullied at the age of six.
Recorded · Sky Sports · 2023
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Architect; Pritzker Prize laureate, 1995
The modern architecture that I have been weaned on also espouses (clear) function, (exposed) structure, and (raw) material as principles—characteristics that tend to be accessed only from…
Recorded · The Hyatt Foundation / The Pritzker Architecture Prize · 1995
Civil rights leader; founder of the King Center
I never got to the point where I felt that nonviolence was not viable. ...
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2004
Founder and chief executive of Acumen
On the one hand, we have people that say the aid system is so broken we need to throw it out. And on the other we have people who say the problem is that we need more aid. ...
Recorded · TED · 2009
What are you unwilling to optimise?
Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, 1978–2023
The highest form that civilization can reach is a seamless web of deserved trust. Not much procedure, just totally reliable people correctly trusting one another.
Recorded · Speakola · 2007
Film director, screenwriter and opera director
It’s how we are made as homo sapiens. We are biologically organized to cover distances on foot.
Recorded · National Geographic · 2020
Neurologist and writer
I’ve had this concern all the time, but I can only hope that if one writes with appreciation and delicacy and respect, then it’s okay.
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2000
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 104
- Arts and letters 1205
- Politics and public life 131
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 45
- Sport 108
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Adam Gopnik, Andrea Martin, Andrew Ridgeley, Andrew W.K., Annie Mac, Audra McDonald, Brian Eno, Bronwyn Katz, Cate Blanchett, Chloe Benjamin, Chloë Sevigny, Christopher Eccleston, Chun Lee-kyung, David Macklovitch, Edward Teller, Frank O. Gehry, Gareth Bale, Graydon Carter, Ian Rankin, Isaac Mizrahi, Jason Williamson, Julia Ormond, Julien Macdonald, June Brown, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Lucy Worsley, Mark Steel, Michael Phelps, Phil Elverum, Rob Brydon, Ronnie Wood, Rose Tremain, Róisín Murphy, Sarah Millican, Thomas Mars, Vera Lynn, Vince Cable, Wendy Kopp, Yury Gogotsi, Yves Bonnefoy
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,669
- Answers
- 7,144
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.