Streep told the graduates that the temptation to compromise — to take the easy money, the safe path, the option that plays better at dinner parties — isn't a one-time decision. It recurs constantly in small forms: a script choice here, a silence there, a complacency that creeps in. She urged them to look each dilemma in the face and decide what they could live with, arguing that Vassar's gift was a conscience that would make settling impossible.