“Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.”
Garretson Beekman “Garry” Trudeau
American cartoonist, best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doonesbury comic strip
May is a month filled with graduation ceremonies. While many a commencement speech is filled with bromides more appropriate to greeting cards, some have the sort of wisdom we could all use a reminder of every day.
Whether or not you’re attending a ceremony this year, soak up some of these choice quotes from five excellent commencement speeches:
1. “Err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.” (George Saunders)
2. “Fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide how much. You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about your pathway to the future, but all there will ever be is what’s happening here, and the decisions we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it.” (Jim Carrey)
3. “When you are free from self-doubt, you fail better, because you don’t have your defenses up, you can accept the criticism. You don’t become so preoccupied with that failure that you forget how to learn from it, you forget how to grow. When you believe in yourself, you succeed better. Hours spent questioning, doubting, fearing, can be given over to working, exploring, living.” (Jennifer Lee)
4. “… the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.” (David McCullough Jr.)
5. “One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, right here, right now, in this single, solitary, monumental moment in your life– is to decide, without apology, to commit to the journey, and not to the outcome.” (Joyce DiDonato)
