There is no delete button for bigotry.
speech graduation justice
Tom Brokaw
Connecticut College Commencement 1996, 1996
Hunger, inadequate medical care, poor housing, and inferior schools are the enemies of wonder. Doors closed for so many of our innately curious children cannot easily be opened.
speech graduation education
Margaret J. Geller
Harvard University Phi Beta Kappa Commencement 1995, 1995
The only way sexism can truly harm you is if you get used to it. Don't ever get used to it.
speech graduation courage
Callie Khouri
Sweet Briar College Commencement 1994, 1994
Your B.A. does not belong to you alone, just as the earth does not belong to its present tenants alone. Your education was lent to you by women of the past, and you will give some back to living women, and to your daughters seven generations from now.
speech graduation legacy
Naomi Wolf
Scripps College Commencement 1992, 1992
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
Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the Holy Book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.
speech graduation wisdom
Joseph Brodsky
University of Michigan Commencement 1988, 1988
Progress is not a straight line. It's a circle in which we strive to use all our talents and complete ourselves. Potentially, we are all winners.
speech graduation growth
Gloria Steinem
Tufts University Commencement 1987, 1987
Equality is the best insurance against the political upheaval that authorities fear. The means are the ends — and vice versa.
speech graduation justice
Gloria Steinem
Tufts University Commencement 1987, 1987
Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.
speech graduation justice
Ursula K. Le Guin
Mills College Commencement 1983, 1983
Hunger is not only for a piece of bread. Hunger is for love. Nakedness is not only for a piece of cloth. Nakedness is for human dignity. Homelessness is not only for a home made of bricks. Homelessness is being rejected, unwanted, unloved.
speech graduation empathy
Mother Teresa
Niagara University Commencement 1982, 1982
A cleaner neighborhood begins with your own broom. A more beautiful city begins with a seed in your own garden. A more just society begins in your own heart.
speech graduation responsibility
Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson
University of Virginia Commencement 1973, 1973
Protest without purpose is a perversion of democratic privilege.
speech graduation wisdom
Edward W. Brooke
Wellesley College Commencement 1969, 1969