Skip to content

The question

What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore?
George Schaller

Field biologist and conservationist; Wildlife Conservation Society

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
Certainly, if you want to get into the field of biology these days, you should also study anthropology because so much work now is with communities. How do you help communities? How do you convince communities to protect their environment? — Especially if, let’s say, you have a tiger eating your cows. The natural gesture is to kill that tiger. Well, what are the alternatives? That’s the kind of thing one is now increasingly working with.

Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 7 November 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 78 →
Óscar Arias Sánchez President of Costa Rica, 1986–1990 and 2006–2010
History was not written by men who predicted failure, who gave up their dreams, who abandoned their principles, who allowed their laziness to put their intelligence to sleep. If certain men at times were alone in seeking victory, they always had at their side the watchful spirit of their peoples, the faith and destiny of many generations.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 11 December 1987 source ↗
Susan Butcher Dog musher; four-time winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
But whenever you do find something — maybe it’s not as passionate for you as dog mushing has been for me — but the fact that you have any interest, that is what you should go with.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 29 June 1991 source ↗
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
so I sometimes think, why should I talk young women into being a scientist if they then end up being sort of disliked or not accepted by their contemporaries and so it’s a tricky business actually.
Recorded Marika Griehsel, Interview at the 53rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 30 June–4 July 2003, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 July 2003 source ↗
Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990; Leader of the Conservative Party 1975–1990; MP for Finchley 1959–1992
You never follow the crowd. You work things out for yourself. And therefore if you think differently from the crowd, you must put your own view and try to get people taking your line. But you never follow the crowd. You never do things just because other people are doing them.
Recorded Chris Ogden, Time magazine, No. 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, from Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre), 16 January 1989 source ↗

More on time & hindsight

Also answered this

Norman Borlaug, Frederick Sanger, Richard Feynman, Richard Leakey, Paul Farmer, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer