44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
Security. People naturally resist change in our personal lives.
Recorded · ABC News · 2011
One question · 6 of 10 answers to it
What is the most overrated virtue?
Author and marketer; founder of Yoyodyne and Squidoo
I think authenticity is a crock, and I think authenticity is overrated and talked about far too much. The problem with authenticity is it’s selfish.
Recorded · The Tim Ferriss Show · 2020
Economist and philosopher; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 1998
This was a co-educational school, with many progressive features.
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 1998
26th President of the United States, 1901–1909; Governor of New York 1899–1900; Assistant Secretary of the Navy 1897–1898
Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world!
Recorded · The American Presidency Project, University of California Santa Barbara · 1910
Poet and essayist; Nobel laureate in Literature, 1996
All sorts of torturers, dictators, fanatics, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs, and they too perform their duties with…
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation (nobelprize.org) · 1996
First Lady of the United States 1933–1945; United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly 1945–1952; Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights 1946–1951
Tolerance ought only to be a preliminary step which allows us to get to know other people, and which prevents us from setting up bars, just because they may be of a different race or…
Recorded · Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, The George Washington University · 1943
Answers marked Recorded were said elsewhere and are quoted with the publication and date they came from. Those people have not joined — nobody here answers on anyone else's behalf.
What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?
Chef and restaurateur
I moved to Argentina, then back to Tokyo and then to Anchorage, in Alaska, where I ran a restaurant. After 50 days the restaurant burnt down – an electrical fire. I lost my dream.
Recorded · The Observer / The Guardian · 2025
Actor, director and producer
God has never let me down. He’s a key factor in guiding my decisions and feeling safe within them. My wife and I suffered three miscarriages, one of them quite late in the pregnancy.
Recorded · The Observer / The Guardian · 2025
Baseball centre fielder; twice National League Most Valuable Player
I was the first black in that particular league. And, we played in a town called Hagerstown, Maryland. ...
Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 1996
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Radio astronomer; discoverer of pulsars
The next generation of telescopes will see millions of events per night with computers that sift through huge amounts of data.
Recorded · University of Cambridge · 2020
Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984
Remember that the resentment and the anger leveled at the United States is not leveled against Americans as Americans.
Recorded · Academy of Achievement
Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank
I always say the Nubank story was very unlikely. It was a very low probability event. Again. We were going after these very big incumbent banks.
Recorded · Goldman Sachs (official event transcript)
What are you unwilling to optimise?
Founder of Patagonia
One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money. But we couldn't be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed.
Recorded · Patagonia · 2022
Operatic soprano and recitalist
I want to be able to express, I want to be able to communicate, and I want to be able to understand what it is I’m doing, and I want the people whose language it is to understand what I’m…
Recorded · Academy of Achievement (achievement.org)
Chef, restaurateur and food activist
There’s no such thing as cheap food. It can be affordable, but it can never be cheap.
Recorded · Earth Island Journal · 2015
People, by what they do
- Science and medicine 104
- Arts and letters 1205
- Politics and public life 131
- Business and finance 70
- Technology 45
- Sport 108
Recorded for public figures, from the source their answers were taken from. Browse by era too.
Questions, by subject
- Identity & self 14
- Values & belief 13
- Change of mind 1
- Failure & regret 9
- Craft & work 36
- Money & investment 4
- Taste & recommendation 6
- Relationships 5
- Time & hindsight 8
- Death & what remains 13
- Daily life 9
- Attention & the world 8
Every question the bank can deal, in the order it was written. See all 126.
Some of the people here · A–Z
Find someone →Albie Sachs, Allison Janney, Amiri Baraka, Amy Hempel, Andrew Weil, Anna Dorn, Arnold Palmer, Bernadette Peters, Carl Barât, Charlie Munger, David Nasaw, David Oyelowo, Debbie Millman, Dervla Kirwan, Edward Enninful, Erin O'Connor, Grace Hopper, Hayley Atwell, Helen Mirren, Jacinda Ardern, James Stockdale, Jean Paul Gaultier, Jerrod Carmichael, John Lewis, John Simm, Justine Kurland, Kei May Lau, Kelis Rogers, Lucy Worsley, Massimo Pigliucci, Monica Dolan, Nadine Gordimer, Nicholas McCarthy, Phoebe Dynevor, Rahul Dravid, Ray Kurzweil, Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D., Toyah Willcox, Whoopi Goldberg, Zach Baron
Answers that stay at one address
You are dealt a few questions at a time and answer the ones you want to. What you write gets a permanent address and keeps it. Rewrite it whenever you like and say why — the new version goes up beside the old one rather than over it, so changing your mind reads as thinking rather than as a reversal.
You write before you read. Other members' answers to a question stay shut until you have answered it or passed on it, because reading first changes what you would have said. Passing is free and it is permanent.
- People
- 1,669
- Answers
- 7,143
- Questions
- 126
- First said
- 1910–2026
Most of what is here so far was said somewhere else and recorded with its source — a named person, a publication and a date, on every line. Nothing has been deleted.