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Time & hindsight

What lesson has mattered most in your life?

138 answers answered between 1956 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

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The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

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

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Mohamed ElBaradei Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005
I think that is the most important lesson you learn in life, that you have to be ready to make a compromise. You do not compromise your principles, but you have to be ready to compromise. You have to understand that you cannot get your way 100 percent. Life is too complicated. You are not an island, and you work in a social setting, and you need to understand that you work always — at the family level, at the society level — to work out the compromise that is perceived to be fair. You don’t get 100 percent of what you want, but at least you will get the basic minimum that you require.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 2006 source ↗
Aung San Suu Kyi Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021
Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness.
Recorded Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 16 June 2012 source ↗
Clive Myrie British journalist, newsreader, and presenter
Be kind and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 June 2024 source ↗

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