If you never venture beyond what you know, you've spawned your own limitations. You've erected the walls of your own private prison cell.
speech graduation courage
Sumner Redstone
Kellogg School of Management Commencement, 2002, 2002
You can spend your life tripping on yourself. You can also spend your life tripping yourself up. Get out of your own way.
speech graduation self discovery
Suzan-Lori Parks
Mount Holyoke College Commencement 2001, 2001
It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. And don't be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I've had four careers and three husbands.
speech graduation courage
Nora Ephron
Wellesley College Commencement 1996, 1996
Being educated is an end in itself. It sets you apart from most of the people on the planet.
speech graduation education
Andy Rooney
Colgate University Commencement 1996, 1996
Mistakes in your 20's are not irreparable; they're part of your education and probably the most valuable part.
speech graduation failure
David Broder
Kalamazoo College Commencement 1988, 1988
Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible.
speech graduation education
Joseph Brodsky
University of Michigan Commencement 1988, 1988
Progress is not a straight line. It's a circle in which we strive to use all our talents and complete ourselves. Potentially, we are all winners.
speech graduation growth
Gloria Steinem
Tufts University Commencement 1987, 1987
Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
speech graduation growth
Ursula K. Le Guin
Mills College Commencement 1983, 1983
The most useful suggestion I can make is that you go on being students for the rest of your lives. Don't move to a mental slum.
speech graduation curiosity
Susan Sontag
Wellesley College Commencement 1983, 1983
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
speech graduation courage
Alan Alda
Connecticut College Commencement 1980, 1980
You cannot afford to think of being here to receive an education: you will do much better to think of being here to claim one.
speech graduation independence
Adrienne Rich
Douglass College Commencement 1977, 1977
Our country is not a completed work. Over the two centuries since 1776, America has gone from beginning to beginning.
speech graduation history
Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson
University of Virginia Commencement 1973, 1973