When we experience our fear, when we say the words 'I am scared,' we have the choice to acknowledge that being scared is not who we are. It is not our identity. And while there is a part of us that is scared, there's also a part of us that isn't scared.
speech graduation courage
Paul Michael Glaser
Stanford University School of Medicine Commencement 2004, 2004
We live in an age in which ideas, important ideas, are worn like articles of fashion — and for precisely the same reason articles of fashion are worn, which is to make the wearer look better and to feel a la mode.
speech graduation authenticity
Tom Wolfe
Boston University Commencement 2000, 2000
An intellectual is a person knowledgeable in one field who speaks out only in others. It required no intellectual effort whatsoever. Suddenly he was elevated to a plane from which he could look down upon ordinary people.
speech graduation authenticity
Tom Wolfe
Boston University Commencement 2000, 2000
Even Terminus, the god of limits, refused to recognize that limits are everything. The open sky above his head testified to his yearning to escape the ground beneath his feet.
speech graduation ambition
Seamus Heaney
University of Pennsylvania Commencement 2000, 2000
To generalize is to be an Idiot. To particularize is alone Distinction of Merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess.
speech graduation wisdom
John Walsh
Wheaton College Commencement 2000, 2000
A people is defined and unified not by blood but by shared memory.
speech graduation legacy
Robert Pinsky
Stanford University Commencement 1999, 1999
Ambition and satisfaction are at war. If you're ambitious, you aren't satisfied, and if you're satisfied, you aren't ambitious.
speech graduation ambition
Andy Rooney
Colgate University Commencement 1996, 1996
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
speech graduation humility
Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot Speech 1996, 1996
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
speech graduation humility
Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot Speech 1996, 1996
Our conscience must catch up to our reason, otherwise we are lost.
speech graduation responsibility
Vaclav Havel
Harvard University Commencement 1995, 1995
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
Saying things are terrible does not automatically establish the reliability of your account. The habitual naysayer is no more to be trusted than the habitual cheerleader.
speech graduation wisdom
Meg Greenfield
Williams College Commencement 1987, 1987