Life will happen to you, whether you try to guide it or not, so you might as well try to influence the outcome. You have to know what you want and you have to be willing to go after it.
speech graduation courage
David Cote
University of New Hampshire Commencement 2011, 2011
You get some success. You run into some walls. And it's how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.
speech graduation perseverance
Steve Ballmer
University of Southern California Commencement, 2011, 2011
The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.
speech graduation failure
Conan O'Brien
Dartmouth College Commencement 2011, 2011
It's not what happens to you. It's what you do with what happens to you.
speech graduation resilience
Chris Waddell
Middlebury College Commencement 2011, 2011
Life is fluid. Sometimes when things don't work out, it's the greatest gift of all.
speech graduation resilience
Chris Waddell
Middlebury College Commencement 2011, 2011
In life, the things that go wrong are often the very things that lead to other things going right.
speech graduation resilience
Arianna Huffington
Sarah Lawrence College Commencement 2011, 2011
Failure is not the opposite of success, it's an integral part of success.
speech graduation failure
Arianna Huffington
Sarah Lawrence College Commencement 2011, 2011
I have always believed that cynicism and pessimism were cop-outs — they're an excuse to take a dive. They're self-fulfilling prophecies.
speech graduation courage
Bill Clinton
Yale University Class Day 2010, 2010
It's okay to fail, and fail big. Failing is the thing that builds character. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
speech graduation failure
Tiffany Shlain
UC Berkeley Commencement 2010, 2010
We dream, we cope, and we endure. And we keep on learning.
speech graduation resilience
Lynn Sherr
Wellesley College Commencement 2010, 2010
What is certain — what has always been certain — is the ability to shape that destiny. That is what makes us different. That is what makes us Americans — our ability at the end of the day to look past all of our differences and all of our disagreements and still forge a common future.
speech graduation purpose
Barack Obama
University of Michigan Commencement 2010, 2010
Our problems are manmade — therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
speech graduation resilience
Jeffrey Sachs
Connecticut College Commencement 2010, 2010