Andrew Young

Civil rights leader, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Mayor of Atlanta

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Everything I did, and I think everything Martin Luther King did, was because we allowed our lives to be in tune with what we felt to be a divine purpose. And it didn’t matter whether we lived or died. It didn’t matter how much money we made, or what we accomplished.

Academy of Achievement interview, 14 August 2013 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 95 →
Leymah Gbowee Peace activist; Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2011
My key message to her, as a nine-year-old, recently has been, “You don’t need to be friends with everyone, but you’re forced to respect everyone. And everyone doesn’t need to be friends with you, but everyone is forced to respect you.”
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 13 September 2018 source ↗
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President of Liberia, 2006–2018
So I urge my sisters, and my brothers, not to be afraid. Be not afraid to denounce injustice, though you may be outnumbered. Be not afraid to seek peace, even if your voice may be small. Be not afraid to demand peace.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 10 December 2011 source ↗
Wole Soyinka Playwright, poet and novelist; Nobel laureate in Literature, 1986
I just say, “Follow your instincts.” Don’t feel you have to follow the paths of others, because you may not be temperamentally fitted for it. And so you’ll just harm yourself and your cause and others. But just follow your instinct, and don’t ever pretend to be what you’re not.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 3 July 2009 source ↗
J.K. Rowling Novelist and screenwriter
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Recorded Harvard University Commencement, 2008, Harvard Gazette, 5 June 2008 source ↗

More from Andrew Young

View profile →

More on time & hindsight

Also answered this

Wendy Kopp, Óscar Arias Sánchez, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Benazir Bhutto, Desmond Tutu, Frank M. Johnson Jr.

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer