Never cook for or sleep with anyone who routinely puts you down.
speech graduation independence
Naomi Wolf
Scripps College Commencement 1992, 1992
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.
speech graduation authenticity
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement 1990, 1990
To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
speech graduation purpose
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement 1990, 1990
Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.
speech graduation authenticity
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement 1990, 1990
Be a hero in your own life. Do the bold thing, do the honorable thing. Do the thing that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Do it for the simple heroic reason you feel it's right.
speech graduation courage
Lawrence Kasdan
University of Michigan Commencement 1990, 1990
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive.
speech graduation authenticity
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement 1990, 1990
To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
speech graduation purpose
Bill Watterson
Kenyon College Commencement 1990, 1990
He must cling fast to his faith in freedom and insist that freedom is the chief glory of mankind. He must not commit injustice or acquiesce when he sees it done by others.
speech graduation justice
David Broder
Kalamazoo College Commencement 1988, 1988
At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody. The moment you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything.
speech graduation resilience
Joseph Brodsky
University of Michigan Commencement 1988, 1988
I know a better truth than yours. It is larger, roomier, more complex, and more authentic than any you will find in a single formulation or dictum or label or theory.
speech graduation wisdom
Meg Greenfield
Williams College Commencement 1987, 1987
We don't need to accept this state of affairs and all the other increasingly imposed limitations of our society without a fight.
speech graduation independence
Meredith Monk
Sarah Lawrence College Commencement 1985, 1985
In a society that systematically limits feelings, I hope you will not be afraid to fight for them.
speech graduation authenticity
Meredith Monk
Sarah Lawrence College Commencement 1985, 1985