Don't think less of someone just because their background differs from yours.
speech graduation empathy
Ray Sidney
Edwin O. Smith High School Commencement 2007, 2007
Have the courage to accept that you're not perfect, nothing is, and no one is — and that's OK.
speech graduation courage
Katie Couric
Williams College Commencement 2007, 2007
There is no substitute for hard work, for doing well at the job you're in.
speech graduation discipline
Katie Couric
Williams College Commencement 2007, 2007
I'm doing the best I can.
speech graduation perseverance
Wangari Maathai
Connecticut College Commencement 2006, 2006
Our wounds are our best lessons, our life's biggest teachers. I have seen powerful love that has changed me forever. It has made me try to walk in other shoes, show more compassion and humility.
speech graduation resilience
Marian Fontana
Massachusetts School of Law Commencement 2006, 2006
Wealth isn't measured in bling and Bentleys. It's measured in the richness of the human spirit. It's measured not in what we take from this world, but what we give to it.
speech graduation humility
John Roberts
Niagara University Commencement 2005, 2005
Self-confidence — quiet self-confidence — is the key to winning. A quiet, deep-seated belief in yourself and what you stand for. Cockiness has nothing to do with confidence.
speech graduation leadership
David L. Calhoun
Virginia Tech Commencement 2005, 2005
Ease up on yourselves. Have some compassion for yourself as well as for others. There's no such thing as perfection, and life is not a race.
speech graduation empathy
Doug Marlette
Durham Academy Commencement 2005, 2005
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. It is our default setting, hardwired into our boards at birth.
speech graduation humility
David Foster Wallace
Kenyon College Commencement 2005, 2005
Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people — or find a different room.
speech graduation humility
Michael Dell
University of Texas at Austin Commencement 2003, 2003
Nobody else is paying as much attention to your failures as you are. You're the only ones who are obsessed with the importance of your own life. To everyone else, it's just a blip on the radar screen.
speech graduation failure
Jerry Zucker
University of Wisconsin-Madison Commencement 2003, 2003
We come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we're just as broke.
speech graduation mortality
Stephen King
Vassar College Commencement 2001, 2001