Richard Leakey

Palaeoanthropologist and conservationist; head of the Kenya Wildlife Service

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
It’s very hard to give people advice, because you don’t know their personality. Personality is a big part of that. Everybody is faced with passing opportunities. Many people watch the opportunity come and watch it go. I say, if an opportunity comes and you have got the self-confidence, grab it. Ride it for a bit. If it’s not the right opportunity, do something else, but be positive about opportunities.

Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 21 June 2007 source ↗

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Reid Hoffman Co-founder of LinkedIn; partner at Greylock Partners
The challenge of a big, over-arching vision is that it's hard to know where to start. And your biggest opportunity will change from year to year. Technology changes. Competition changes. You change. My advice: Just start. Find a single unmet need that nudges the world closer to where you believe it's going. And if you hit a dead end, pivot.
Recorded Hoffman's own Medium publication, Reid Hoffman on Medium source ↗
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Developmental biologist; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1995
so I sometimes think, why should I talk young women into being a scientist if they then end up being sort of disliked or not accepted by their contemporaries and so it’s a tricky business actually.
Recorded Marika Griehsel, Interview at the 53rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 30 June–4 July 2003, Nobel Prize Outreach, 1 July 2003 source ↗
Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984
Dream. Dream. Dream. Be like God, dream because God believes in you young people. Most of God’s best collaborators and partners have been young people. Joseph, David, Jeremiah, St. Francis. They are young, young, young. And in many ways Jesus was young. Many of those who have been God’s best works — fellow workers have been young. And don’t allow oldies to fill you with their cynicism and disillusionment. Dream. Dream that this world can become better as you do dream, in fact. I mean, when these young people go off and work as Peace Corps and other volunteering groups in poverty stricken places where they don’t get any better headlines for dreaming the good things. Dream. Dream. Dream. Dream that this can be a world without poverty. Dream that this can be a world without war. Dream that this is a world that will recognize that every human being matters.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗
Werner Herzog Film director, screenwriter and opera director
No. Go for it, as I did it. Go for all the mistakes. I made so many mistakes in doing my films. They all have a stutter or a limp or they are squint-eyed. Hardly anyone notices it, but I notice. Make your mistakes. Get arrested if you trespass. Yes. Do it. There’s nothing wrong with spending a night or two in jail. I’ve done that. Don’t be afraid of the grizzly bear behind you. Travel on foot. Read books.
Recorded Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 'The Last Word' interview, 1 January 2020 source ↗

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Question How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? Failure & regret
So Cambridge rejected me. Quite rightly, although at the time I thought it was a little churlish. So, I had to do it without any university training. ... and I began to realize that there were probably a lot more of these things, and that if you find these things, you get a position in the ladder which you can’t get to unless you have either got an education or something else. So by finding important things, you immediately get into the game, which you’d been excluded from otherwise.
Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 21 June 2007 source ↗

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