Protest without purpose is a perversion of democratic privilege.
speech graduation wisdom
Edward W. Brooke
Wellesley College Commencement 1969, 1969
There is a narrow but distinct line between productive dissent and counter-productive disruption. It is possible to dissent without being destructive.
speech graduation wisdom
Edward W. Brooke
Wellesley College Commencement 1969, 1969
The right to protest exists to protect the powerless from the powerful. When protest itself becomes a form of power, it must be exercised with the same responsibility we demand of all power.
speech graduation responsibility
Edward W. Brooke
Wellesley College Commencement 1969, 1969
For peace is a process — a way of solving problems.
speech graduation patience
John F. Kennedy
American University Commencement 1963, 1963
The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through great periods of social change.
speech graduation justice
Martin Luther King Jr.
Morehouse College Commencement 1959, 1959
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
speech graduation purpose
Martin Luther King Jr.
Morehouse College Commencement 1959, 1959
Through our scientific genius we have made of this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make of it a brotherhood.
speech graduation empathy
Martin Luther King Jr.
Morehouse College Commencement 1959, 1959
Throughout the world, mutual suspicions flourish in ignorance and misunderstanding. They can be dispelled only with knowledge and wisdom.
speech graduation empathy
Dwight Eisenhower
Penn State Commencement 1955, 1955
Hand and head and heart were made to work together. They must work together. They should be educated together.
speech graduation education
Dwight Eisenhower
Penn State Commencement 1955, 1955
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done.
speech graduation courage
Winston Churchill
Harrow School Address 1941, 1941
Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls.
speech graduation authenticity
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Harvard Divinity School Address 1838, 1838
Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.
speech graduation philosophy
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Harvard Divinity School Address 1838, 1838