What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

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Recorded Mohamed ElBaradei said elsewhere, not written here
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.

Academy of Achievement interview, 2006 source ↗

Others on this question

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Tony Judt Historian and essayist
I think the only life experience that I have to offer out of this is something we all know in the abstract but don't experience in practice very much. That is that you can survive an awful lot of bad stuff, so long as your mind is intact. I'm afraid that's the only life experience I have to offer.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR, 29 March 2010 source ↗
Simon Boas Aid worker; executive director of Jersey Overseas Aid
All our tombs will be unvisited in a few years - all our actions will mostly be unremembered - but the smile you gave the checkout lady or the kind words you gave to a stranger in the street could still be rippling forward. We all have that opportunity and it's a huge power.
Recorded Emma Barnett, BBC Radio 4, Today, as published by BBC News, 4 July 2024 source ↗

More from Mohamed ElBaradei

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Question How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? Failure & regret
Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, I believe we could have done that through an inspection process. I was calling for a few months more to complete our work. We hadn’t seen indications of weapons of mass destruction. We hadn’t seen indications of nuclear weapons. ... Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. There was faulty intelligence. There were lots of other considerations that made a decision to go to war tempting, to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 2006 source ↗
Question What problem are you still trying to solve? Craft & work
Well, I think the most single important issue today is to make sure that nuclear weapons will not proliferate beyond the eight, or nine, countries that already have nuclear weapons; and absolutely make sure that none of these nuclear weapons or this nuclear material will fall into the hands of any extremist or terrorist group, because if they got hold of this material, they would use it. That would be the beginning of the end for civilisation as we know it.
Recorded Nobel Prize telephone interview, 7 October 2005, 7 October 2005 source ↗
Question What is the biggest obstacle you have faced professionally? Craft & work
No. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out quite that way. At that time, everybody was euphoric that we will have a new world order, you know, a world order that does not rely on nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. ... We still have thousands of warheads in existence. We still have more than 20 — 30 countries relying on nuclear deterrence for their own survival.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, 2006 source ↗

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