50 Of The Most Powerful And Inspiring Commencement Speeches Of All Time

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case, you fail by default.”

— J. K. Rowling, harvardmagazine.com

“Take action. Every story you've ever connected with, every leader you've ever admired, every puny little thing that you've ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is…”

— Bradley Whitford, news.wisc.edu

“Life is not about warming yourself by the fire, life is about building the fire.”

— Larry Lucchino, youtube.com

“You are our hope. So cherish this time in your life. Remember who you are. Because, right now, you have it all: The power of your imagination, the velocity of your dreams, the language of innocence, and the passion of a beginner. Don't lose it. Don't let it evaporate or get stripped away or worn awa…”

— Jessica Lange, graduationwisdom.com

“As long as you are alive, it is never too late. You are free in each moment to choose the path of your heart and it never stops whispering to you, urging you to follow it.”

— John Mackey, graduationwisdom.com

“Every one of us has a calling. There is a reason why you are here. I know this for sure. And that reason is greater than any degree. It's greater than any paycheque. And it's greater than anything anybody can tell you that are you supposed to do. Your real job is to find out what the reason is and g…”

— Oprah Winfrey, transcripts.cnn.com

“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone, even if it means being uncomfortable.The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades, bumps, and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested — a…”

— Katie Couric, web.williams.edu

“Make choices that will make you happy for a long time, rather than just focusing on the next two seconds.”

— Ray Sidney, graduationwisdom.com

“I want you to be potent; to do good when you can and to hold your wit and your intelligence like a shield against other people's wantonness. And above all, to laugh and enjoy yourself in a life of your own choosing and in a world of your own making. I want you to be strong and aggressive and tough a…”

— Alan Alda, graduationwisdom.com

“When we experience our fear, when we say the words 'I am scared,' we have the choice, the ability to acknowledge that being 'scared' is not who we are. It is not our identity.”

— Paul Glaser, paulmichaelglaser.org

“My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out. There are going to be times in your life when you’re going to have to stick your neck out. There will be challenges and instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them.”

— Ruth Westheimers, graduationwisdom.com

“Don’t believe them when they tell you how bad you are and how terrible your ideas are, but also, don’t believe them when they start telling you how wonderful you are and how great your ideas are. Just believe in yourself and believe in your work and you’ll do just fine.”

— Michael Uslan, graduationwisdom.com

“I've always liked the story of the college student who got a C on his final paper because his idea was implausible. The idea ... an overnight delivery service. The student ... Fred Smith. You may know him better as the CEO of FedEx. So, don't let anyone else take the measure of your worth and capabi…”

— Margaret Spellings, graduationwisdom.com

“Know yourself and to your own self be true. You may find some day three or four years from now that you simply don't like engineering, or teaching, or architecture, or government, or the company you started with. You have little in common with the people you work with, and relative to your peers, yo…”

— David L. Calhoun, graduationwisdom.com

“The way to be happy is to like yourself, and the way to like yourself is to do only things that make you proud.”

— Mark S. Lewis, graduationwisdom.com

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.…”

— Steve Jobs, news.stanford.edu

“I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live re…”

— Joan Didion, joandidion.wordpress.com

“As you begin your new journey, you can try to remove everything that you find distasteful in the world, or you can just pour in more love. It's the only thing that the more you give away, the more you have. So take all that warm, fuzzy stuff you've been hiding and spread it around a little. And then…”

— Jerry Zucker, news.wisc.edu

“You are our link to a new generation. You must reassess, re-examine and clarify your priorities and not just be satisfied with the status quo. Whether you go into research, business, law, medicine, public service or education, neither you nor society can continue to survive or prosper simply by impl…”

— Yvonne Thorton, graduationwisdom.com

“So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.”

— John Stewart, americanrhetoric.com

“Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion the bigger paycheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing its…”

— Anna Quindlen, cs.oswego.edu

“Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you fai…”

— Paul Hawken, culturechange.org

“But to be in a locker room before a big game and to gather a team around and to look at grown men with tears in their eyes huddling close to each other…reaching out to be part of each other…to look into strong faces, which say, “If we can only do it today”…to be with aggressive, ambitious people who…”

— Joe Paterno, graduationwisdom.com

“Create an entourage of heroes. Put their pictures on your wall, and keep them in your mind.”

— David Brooks, wfu.edu

“Follow your passion and your heart. You will need to find your passion. If you did not find it, you will find it later, in your 30s or 40s but do not give up on finding it and follow it. You will not find it in things or money because the more you have the more you will use that as a metric and woul…”

— Randy Pausch, youtube.com

“So from the wise old pinnacle of my 49 years, I want to tell you that what you're looking for is already inside you. You've heard this before, but the holy thing inside you really is that which causes you to seek it. You can't buy it, lease it, rent it, date it or apply for it. The best job in the w…”

— Anne Lamott, graduationwisdom.com

“Integrate what you believe into every single area of your life. Take your heart to work, and ask the most and best of everybody else too. Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing compl…”

— Meryl Streep, graduationwisdom.com

“Failure will teach you things that you can learn no place else. You may find that you have a great work ethic, a strong will, an extra gear, and a network of friends who love you. Really, how else will you know yourself or the strength of your friendships until both have been tested by adversity? Th…”

— Jonathan Youshaei, schoolsnapshots.org

“I had to be true to myself, as hard as that was and as scary as that was, you’ve got to listen to the voice in your gut. It is individual. It is unique. It is yours. It’s called being authentic. There’s only one of you and maybe you’re not going to follow the path that other people would like to put…”

— Meredith Vieira, graduationwisdom.com

“But I will tell you something very simple and obvious, which is that it is likely that human beings will find fulfillment and will be rewarded for the same qualities that they have been rewarded for for 5,000 years. And that is intelligence, hard work, honesty, a sense of character, loyalty to famil…”

— Fareed Zakaria, bates.edu