Psychology

You achieve your best performance by doing the best you can without having your mind clouded by drifting thoughts of what could happen when something goes wrong. That's what you train for, and your training gives you the ability to build the mental tools and programmes of action to make good decisions.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon

In life, we all take various risks- not knowing how serious an outcome will be when we start. For so many things we do, we have to take a risk on someone else's word, with only their judgement calculating what the risk will be to us.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon

Don't become paralysed by anticipating the unexpected. It does not pay to be worried about failure. If your mind is crowded with thoughts of what could happen, you will never achieve your best performance.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon

Every failure has lessons it can give us- and knowing failure is possible and monitoring where you expect it to occur, allows you to divert your attention to the necessary observations and actions to carry out the positive.

Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11; Second Person to Walk on Moon

We like to think of data as being objective, but the answers we get are often shaped by the questions we ask. When those questions are biased, the data is, too.

Co-Founder of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Health Advocate

Rationality applies whether you believe in it or not. One idea follows from another – or it doesn't – and if you want some of your beliefs to lead to other beliefs, you have no choice but to be rational. We're committed to it by the very act of discussing, arguing, debating, persuading and convincing.

Cognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature

Those cycles don't exist – that's not what history is like. Disasters keep coming along at random intervals, they are not normally distributed... That's hard for our brains to deal with… we don't like the idea that history is just a lot of random shocks without any predictable features.

British historian and author specializing in financial and military history

There are really no defeats in life, just opportunities to become better, stronger.

World Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator

Looking back, it was one of the best things that could've happened to me. It was a rude awakening and it felt like my world was crashing in on me. It was a rough few days after the fight but instead of choosing to feel sorry for myself, I used the defeat as fuel for more determination.

World Champion Boxer & Philippine Senator

100% of anything I have ever felt uncomfortable about, embarrassed about or tried to hide…. When I embraced those things and flipped the script…. I felt freer, happier and more capable.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

A lot of people assume that I would choose not to have bipolar disorder; but I'm grateful for it. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, because I feel like all the ups and downs have formed who I am, and made be braver, tougher… more creative and more capable.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

Early on, being told no helped me figure out what I wanted my yes's to be. I learned who I wanted to be from people telling me who I could not be.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

You have to show 100% genuine emotion and personality through everything you do and allow that to connect to people. You cannot keep things inside because you think people won't accept you, or will think you're strange; just let your freak flag fly.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

I'm a firm believer that creativity comes from restrictions, so I'm really grateful that I grew-up with so many restrictions around me. When you give someone complete freedom and a blank canvas, it could take forever to figure out what you want to do, but when you give people limitations and say, 'here's a canvas, but you can only paint with yellow..' – the wheels start turning, and you plan to get out of the box you're put in.

Professional wrestler and WWE performer, known as AJ Lee

The inexpressible depth of music... easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all of the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.

Acclaimed film composer known for scores like The Lion King and Inception

We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one. We integrate all of these and 'construct' music in our minds using many different parts of the brain. And to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music.

Acclaimed film composer known for scores like The Lion King and Inception