The question

What lesson has mattered most in your life?

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

Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.

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Richard Feynman Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
It is necessary, I believe, to accept this idea, not only for science, but also for other things; it is of great value to acknowledge ignorance.  It is a fact that when we make decisions in our life we don't necessarily know that we are making them correctly; we only think that we are doing the best we can – and that is what we should do.
Recorded Caltech YMCA Lunch Forum, Engineering and Science / Caltech Magazine, 2 May 1956 source ↗
Barack Obama 44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
I believe in this country. I believe in the American people. I believe that people are more good than bad. I believe tragic things happen, I think there's evil in the world, but I think that at the end of the day, if we work hard, and if we're true to those things in us that feel true and feel right, that the world gets a little better each time.
Recorded Christi Parsons, James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, the White House, The White House (Obama administration archive), 18 January 2017 source ↗
Maurice Sendak Children's author and illustrator
Yes. I'm not unhappy about becoming old. I'm not unhappy about what must be. It makes me cry only when I see my friends go before me and life is emptied. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again. ... But, you know, there's something I'm finding out as I'm aging that I am in love with the world. And I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio and I see my trees and my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old, they're beautiful. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are. It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to read the books, to listen to the music.
Recorded Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR — recorded by telephone in September 2011, his last interview, 20 September 2011 source ↗

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