Congratulations, Class of 2017!
"Do all the other things, the ambitious things—travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes...but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness." George Saunders to Syracuse University in 2013
"Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Steve Jobs to Stanford in 2005
"And how do you know when you’re doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so. What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life. When you’re supposed to do something or not supposed to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know. The trick is to learn to check your ego at the door and start checking your gut instead." Oprah Winfrey to Stanford University in 2008
"Be bold, be courageous, be your best." Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to Bard College in 2013
"From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art." Toni Morrison to Wellesley College in 2004
Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing." Madeleine Albright to UNC in 2007
"I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve." Maya Angelou to UC Riverside in 1977
" Thankfully dreams can change. If we’d all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses. So whatever your dream is right now, if you don’t achieve it, you haven’t failed, and you’re not some loser. But just as importantly—and this is the part I may not get right and you may not listen to—if you do get your dream, you are not a winner." Stephen Colbert to Northwestern in 2011
"The most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and to not give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not." Ellen DeGeneres to Tulane in 2009
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default." J.K. Rowling to Harvard in 2008
"Don’t be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self." Ed Helms to Knox College in 2013
"Real courage is holding on to a still voice in your head that says, ‘I must keep going.’ It’s that voice that says nothing is a failure if it is not final. That voice that says to you, ‘Get out of bed. Keep going. I will not quit.’" Cory Booker to Yale University in 2013
“What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” Stephen Covey
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” Dr. Seuss
“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” JK Rowling
