Responsibility

I look at all of you and see America's future — attorneys, corporate lawyers, public prosecutors, judges, politicians, maybe even the President. Those are all positions of such great influence. Understand that one day, you will have the power to make a difference. So use it well.

In the profession of the law, it's not how much you make that matters, but whether you make a difference.

Making a difference as a lawyer means devoting time to public service. This is what makes the practice of law a profession, and not just a job.

Optimism is often dismissed as false hope. But there is also false hopelessness. That's the attitude that says we can't defeat poverty and disease. We absolutely can.

If our optimism doesn't address the problems that affect so many of our fellow human beings, then our optimism needs more empathy. If empathy channels our optimism, we will see the poverty and the disease and the poor schools — and we will surprise the pessimists.

It betrays a poverty of ambition if all you think about is what goods you can buy instead of what good you can do.

You do not pass through this life. It passes through you. You experience it, you interpret it, you act, and then it is different. That happens constantly. You are changing the world. You always have been.

A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment, luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and probably income, luckiest in their educational and career opportunities — those are the folks who reap the largest rewards.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

Education does begin in the home, not in the schools. In the first weeks of life, there comes a moment when a child hears its mother's voice and knows that it's his mother. At that point, the brain shuts out all other languages and only listens to the mother's language. At that moment, education begins.

Pause before you make judgments about people's personal and professional decisions. Pause before you join in and disparage someone's sexuality or their intellectual ability. Pause before forwarding the untrue and inflammatory tidbits that have made it so difficult for public servants to serve.

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever, but to be part of an ongoing historical movement.