Empathy

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.

The great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special. Because everyone is.

You can never be truly free if you do not join efforts to free someone else. The function of freedom is always to free someone else.

The true test of a human being's character is how he treats people in his life that he cannot use.

Don't ever forget that you're a citizen of this world. There are things you can do to lift the human spirit — things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character.

I cannot stress enough that the answer to a lot of your life's questions is often in someone else's face. Try to find the most interesting-looking person in the room, the ## person most unlike you, and talk to them.

Hopes, dreams, and aspirations are evenly distributed throughout the entire world. But what is not is justice, opportunity, and working systems.

In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.

Try to remember that every one of you is a star of your own. If you pay attention to others and extend a helping hand to those in need, you will be a star in someone else's life.

You cannot be brave all by yourself. Everybody's got to have a Charlotte. You're going to be Wilbur a lot. You're going to need a Charlotte.

When you feel scared, hold someone's hand and look into their eyes. And when you feel brave, do the same thing.

I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation, and we must strive to make equality in education a reality, not just a theory.