You are imperfect. Your knowledge is never complete. Your skills are never infallible. Yet you have to act. You cannot let yourself become paralyzed by fear — yet you cannot blind yourself to failure either.
speech graduation courage
Atul Gawande
Williams College Commencement 2012, 2012
A connection should probably make you feel a little uneasy. Because if you make a connection it means you're beginning to take responsibility for that person's life.
speech graduation empathy
Cynthia Enloe
Connecticut College Commencement 2011, 2011
The soft power of science has the potential to reshape global diplomacy—and at significantly lower expense than that needed for use of the hard power of military involvement.
speech graduation science
Ahmed Zewail
Caltech Commencement 2011, 2011
All of mankind's problems are due to the fact that we do not know what we are and cannot agree on what we wish to become.
speech graduation self discovery
Edward O. Wilson
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Commencement 2011, 2011
It's not whether your attitude is good or bad, but does it define your direction? People usually fall short because they're a degree or two off in attitude, and over time and distance, that can put you in a place far away from where you would like to be.
speech graduation discipline
Jim Steen
Kenyon College Commencement 2011, 2011
In any given moment, one lives one's life in one of two ways: either under a threat or for a challenge. If imagination will take you everywhere, then living under a threat will take you nowhere.
speech graduation courage
Jim Steen
Kenyon College Commencement 2011, 2011
The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It's to lose yourself.
speech graduation purpose
David Brooks
Rice University Commencement 2011, 2011
Life is too short to let the world we experience be restricted by our own limited vision.
speech graduation curiosity
Sergio Marchionne
University of Toledo Commencement 2011, 2011
You cannot win your life. And like improv, you cannot win your life.
speech graduation humility
Stephen Colbert
Northwestern University Commencement, 2011, 2011
It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.
speech graduation failure
Conan O'Brien
Dartmouth College Commencement 2011, 2011
Success, like happiness, can't be pursued. It must ensue as the unintended byproduct of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
speech graduation success
Chris Waddell
Middlebury College Commencement 2011, 2011
Nobody remembers the naysayers. In the end, all that endures are the builders, and in the end even the builders are forgotten and all that endures are the ripples of what they built — and that's a good thing.
speech graduation legacy
Bill Clinton
Yale University Class Day 2010, 2010