Late enough to be looking back, close enough to still be doing the work. Most of the advice-to-your-younger-self answers here were given by someone in this decade or the next.
43 people · 1,345 answers
Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2012
As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many.
Chancellor of Germany, 2005–2021; Leader of the Christian Democratic Union 2000–2018
Recorded · The Harvard Gazette, Harvard University · 2019
Tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, for nothing has to stay as it is.
Gynaecological surgeon; Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2018
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2018
Taking action means saying 'no' to indifference. If there is a war to be waged, it is the war against the indifference which is eating away at our societies.
Founder of Grameen Bank; Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2006
In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums.
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
Recorded · Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, The George Washington University · 1944
If silence seems to give approval, then remaining silent is cowardly.
Secretary-General of the United Nations, 1997–2006
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2001
In this new century, we must start from the understanding that peace belongs not only to states or peoples, but to each and every member of those communities.
Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2007
Sherry offered me a list of research options: the one project that intrigued me the most consisted of finding out the environmental fate of certain very inert industrial chemicals – the…
Psychologist; laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, 2002
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2002
Amos and I shared the wonder of together owning a goose that could lay golden eggs – a joint mind that was better than our separate minds.
Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2012
Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue?
Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
Recorded · Berkshire Hathaway Inc. · 1992
We've just passed a milestone: Twenty years ago, on January 3, 1972, Blue Chip Stamps (then an affiliate of Berkshire and later merged into it) bought control of See's Candy Shops, a West…
Founder of the Green Belt Movement; Member of Parliament for Tetu, Kenya, 2002–2007; Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources 2003–2005
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2004
Tree planting became a natural choice to address some of the initial basic needs identified by women.
Composer, record producer and visual artist
Recorded · Telekom Electronic Beats · 2011
I call it “stolen time”—there’s nothing more valuable than stolen time.
Leader of the National League for Democracy; Nobel Peace Prize laureate; State Counsellor of Myanmar, 2016–2021
Recorded · The Nobel Foundation · 2012
Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander.
Novelist and editor; Nobel laureate in Literature, 1993
Recorded · The Paris Review · 1993
I, at first, thought I didn’t have a ritual, but then I remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark—it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch…
Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
Recorded · Nobel Prize Outreach · 2007
I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets.
Composer, pianist and record producer
Recorded · Slant Magazine · 2018
Listening to the sound of rain. Almost every time it rains, I start recording it. Almost each day. What else? Sensing the movements of the wind.
Adam Clayton, Alison Steadman, Ally McCoist, Andrew Ridgeley, Arlene Phillips, Aung San Suu Kyi, Ben Okri, Bobbi Brown, Bruno Tonioli, Caroline Lucas, Charles Dance, Chris Bryant, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Clive Myrie, Esther Freud, Gloria Estefan, Jared Harris, Jimmy Carter, John Lewis, John Waters, Jon Sopel, Juliet Stevenson, Kathy Lette, Keir Starmer, Kelly Hoppen, Keren Woodward, Mariella Frostrup, Mario Molina, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Ball, Michael Flatley, Michelle Collins, Midge Ure, Milton Jones, Mohamed ElBaradei, Neil Gaiman, Oliver Sacks, Paul McKenna, Richard Feynman, Sandi Toksvig, Tony Judt, Warren Buffett, Winston Churchill