Writer and human rights advocate; Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1986
I remember the awakening that occurred in me when I read, for the first time, Franz Kafka. ... That morning I was happy.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1996
Politics and public life
People on the record here who work in politics and public life, and what they were asked.
20 people · 597 answers
Which book changed the way you think, and what did it change?
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
When I was a young boy, [my schoolteacher Julia Coleman] introduced me to Leo Tolstoy's novel, "War and Peace." She interpreted that powerful narrative as a reminder that the simple human…
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2002
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
In history I decided to begin with Gibbon.
Recorded · Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (Thornton Butterworth, 1930), Project Gutenberg Canada · 1930
Anti-apartheid lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
I’d been introduced to Freud through all this because I couldn’t understand why is it so difficult to be brave.
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2009
41st President of the United States, 1989–1993
One of the historians here in Williamsburg talked about War and Peace. I had to read that in school. It was an inspiring, lengthy treatise. I read it twice. It taught me a lot about life.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1995
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1988–2018
I think fiction is very important because it gets us into the mind of a person. Hamlet is a tremendous piece of literature. You know Hamlet better than you know most real people.
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2005
What is the thing you are best at that nobody watching can see?
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1993–2020; Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 1980–1993
I have followed that advice - with, I confess, occasional lapses not only at home, but in the places I have worked, even in relating to my colleagues at the Supreme Court.
Recorded · New York Law School Law Review (digitalcommons.nyls.edu) · 1999
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
Mr. Somervell—a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great—was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing—namely, to write mere English.
Recorded · Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life (Thornton Butterworth, 1930), Project Gutenberg Canada · 1930
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
I always have, in my expeditions, people who are academically far cleverer than I am, and even technically, far more competent.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
What is something you were told by a parent, teacher, or mentor that you still repeat to yourself?
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
My mother used to say to me a thing which, when I look back on it, wasn’t terribly logical.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
War correspondent and author; Pulitzer Prize winner, 1989
One of my editors once said to me, “If you get invited to the White House, take your notebook with you,” and he meant it.
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2007
Photojournalist and war photographer; Pulitzer Prize winner, 2009
My parents also said, “Don’t follow money. Follow your heart and you’ll be successful.” That’s all they told me and my sisters.
Recorded · American Academy of Achievement · 2017
President of Liberia, 2006–2018
Mine has been a long journey, a lifetime journey to Oslo.
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2011
39th President of the United States, 1977–1981; Governor of Georgia 1971–1975
I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman.
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2002
Everyone here · A–Z
Anita Rani, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Caroline Lucas, Chris Bryant, Clive Myrie, Desmond Tutu, Edmund Hillary, George H. W. Bush, Gloria Steinem, John Lewis, Jon Snow, Jon Sopel, Keir Starmer, Kellie Maloney, Malala Yousafzai, Mohamed ElBaradei, Rory Stewart, Winston Churchill, Zack Polanski