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Failure & regret

What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?

35 answers answered between 1930 and 2026

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Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 3 Arts and letters 17 Politics and public life 12 Sport 3
Read by age Any age Before thirty 1 In their thirties 3 In their forties 5 In their fifties 4 In their sixties 9 Seventy and beyond 8
George H. W. Bush 41st President of the United States, 1989–1993
If you really want to make a difference, whether it’s in helping other people, or whether it’s in fighting for your country, or whether it’s in the political arena, or journalism, or physics, you’ve got to persevere. You’ve got to understand that there are going to be some enormous bumps in the road.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Williamsburg, Virginia, 2 June 1995 source ↗
Albie Sachs Anti-apartheid lawyer; Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
And into the darkness I said, “What happened?” and a woman’s voice said, “It was a car bomb,” and I collapsed into darkness again, but with a sense of euphoria. I’d survived.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 3 July 2009 source ↗

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