I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student - and not to a test.

There is no employing class, no working class, no farming class. You may pigeonhole a man or woman as a farmer or a worker or a professional man or an employer or even a banker. But the son of the farmer will be a doctor or a worker or even a banker, and his daughter a teacher. The son of a worker will be an employer - or maybe president.

I taught myself English. My English teacher was the sitcom 'Friends.' Back in the days when I was, like, 15, 14, it was like a syndrome for Korean parents to make their kids watch 'Friends.' I thought I was a victim at that time, but now I'm the lucky one.

My mother was an elementary school teacher for 35 years and taught at the Nixon School in New Jersey. I was raised as a very liberal Democrat, and she was protesting Nixon when he was in office.

Whenever people ask me: 'Why didn't you get up when the bus driver asked you?' I say it felt as though Harriet Tubman's hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Sojourner Truth's hands were pushing me down on the other shoulder. I felt inspired by these women because my teacher taught us about them in so much detail.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught.

I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.

A self-taught man usually has a poor teacher and a worse student.

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

Pierre Curie came to see me and showed a simple and sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and he asked me to share that life.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

As a child growing up in refugee camps, life taught me that many things were impossible. My older sister, Claire, taught me otherwise when her strength and resilience made the impossible possible in the way she worked, behaved, and took control of our lives.

Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength.

Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.

This inner strength we have, this desire to evolve and expand and explore, I do love that about humanity. At the same time, it's scary what it does on a global scale. I'm very much caught between the two.

The people I see be the most successful are the people who have an inner confidence and an inner strength that comes from the character they display away from the stage and from what their parents taught them.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

I have my parents to thank for that, they raised me to be active and play all sports. They taught me the importance of staying healthy, being focused and setting goals in whatever I do.

I learned easily and had time to follow my inclination for sports (light athletics and skiing) and chemistry, which I taught myself by reading all textbooks I could get.

Sports psychology suggests - and we as players have been taught - that negative self-talk can diminish our chances for success and that the opposite is also true. Given the talent, we can also think and speak our way to success.

Several professional athletes have wrongly taught many young Americans by example that the only way to succeed in sports is to take steroids.

We live in a world where sports have the potential to bridge the gap between racism, sexism and discrimination. The 2012 Olympic Games was a great start but hopefully what these games taught us is that if women are given an opportunity on an equal playing field the possibilities for women are endless.

As a result of Title IX, and a new generation of parents who want their daughters to have the opportunities they never had, women's sports have arrived.

I was lucky enough when it came to sports and work ethic to be taught some basics that continue to be important.