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
Your job is to witness. To witness, to understand, to comprehend, and to celebrate. To celebrate with your lives.
speech graduation wonder
Ray Bradbury
Caltech 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
They are not powerless, the dead.
speech graduation legacy
Robert Pinsky
Stanford University Commencement 1999, 1999
Idealism is not a paralyzing but a liberating force, and to strive for principles, even if the journey is never completed, is to tap a vast source of energy.
speech graduation purpose
Tom Brokaw
Connecticut College Commencement 1996, 1996
We all live under the same sky, but we do not have the same horizon.
speech graduation ambition
Brian Dyson
Georgia Tech 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
The hardest thing in the world is to let yourself know what you know. Because life is noisy. Everything we're told, everything about the way we're raised and educated and bombarded by our culture makes noise. And that noise makes it very hard to hear the ticking of our own hearts.
speech graduation authenticity
Lawrence Kasdan
University of Michigan Commencement 1990, 1990
Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
speech graduation growth
Ursula K. Le Guin
Mills College Commencement 1983, 1983
That choice, between the devil and the dream, comes up every day in different little disguises.
speech graduation courage
Meryl Streep
Vassar 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