Time & hindsight

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

141 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.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 8 Arts and letters 112 Politics and public life 11 Business and finance 5 Technology 2 Sport 3
Read by age Any age Before thirty 2 In their thirties 24 In their forties 21 In their fifties 33 In their sixties 26 Seventy and beyond 26
Steve Jobs Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don't blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life.
Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗
Hiroshi Mikitani Founder, chairman and chief executive of Rakuten
I REALIZED IN THOSE DAYS HOW TENUOUS OUR EXISTENCE IS,” HE WROTE IN HBR. “WE HAVE ONLY ONE LIFE, AND IT MUST BE LIVED TO THE FULLEST—NOT SOMEDAY, BUT NOW.
Recorded Harvard Business School source ↗

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