Never Settle | Top 10 Commencement Speeches of All Time

Every year, some of the most successful people in the world step onto a graduation stage with one mission: to pass on the lessons that shaped their lives.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

You want to max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family, and the people around you.

Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.

In just a few minutes, these speeches inspire millions to dream bigger, think differently, and take bold action.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

So today we're counting down 10 of the most powerful commencement speeches ever given. Need motivation?

Watch the top 10 with Believe Nation.

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All right, let's kick it off with number 1, Steve Jobs from Stanford University.

I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you 3 stories from my life. That's it, no big deal. Just 3 stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why'd I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, we've got an unexpected baby boy. 'Do you want him?' They said, 'Of course.' My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life. And 17 years later, I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After 6 months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example. Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus, every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I love to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at 30, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next 5 years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking Don't settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like, "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable and that I should expect to live no longer than 3 to 6 months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order. Which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I live with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening, I had a biopsy. Where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach, and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas, and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery, and thankfully I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: no one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. 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. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called the Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late '60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of the Whole Earth Catalog, And then, when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay hungry, stay foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish. Thank you all very much.

Number 2, Admiral William H. McRaven from the University of Texas Austin.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, thank you, President Powers. Provost Fenves, deans, members of the faculty, family and friends, and most importantly, the Class of 2014. It is indeed an honor for me to be here tonight. It's been almost 37 years to the day that I graduated from UT. I remember a lot of things about that day. I remember I had a throbbing headache from a party the night before. I remember I had a serious girlfriend who I later married. That's important to remember, by the way. And I remember I was getting commissioned in the Navy that day. But of all the things I remember, I don't have a clue who the commencement speaker was, and I certainly don't remember anything they said. So acknowledging that fact, if I can't make this commencement speech memorable, I will at least try to make it short. So the university's slogan is, "What starts here changes the world." Well, I've got to admit, I kind of like it. What starts here changes the world. Tonight there are almost 8,000 students— or there are more than 8,000 students graduating from UT. So that great paragon of analytical rigor, Ask.com, says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime. 10,000 people, that's a lot of folks. But if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people, and each one of those people changed the lives of another 10 people, and another 10, then in 5 generations, 125 years, the Class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people. 800 million people. Think about it. Over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can change the entire population of the world, 8 billion people. If you think it's hard to change the lives of 10 people, change their lives forever, you're wrong. I saw it happen every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. A young Army officer makes a decision to go left instead of right down a road in Baghdad, and the 10 soldiers with him are saved from a close-in ambush. In Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, a noncommissioned officer from the Female Engagement Team senses that something isn't right and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500-pound IED, saving the lives of a dozen soldiers. But if you think about it, not only were those soldiers saved by the decisions of one person, But their children were saved, and their children's children. Generations were saved by one decision, one person. But changing the world can happen anywhere, and anyone can do it. So what starts here can indeed change the world. But the question is, what will the world look like after you change it? Well, I'm confident that it will look much, much better. But if you'll humor this old sailor for just a moment, I have a few suggestions that might help you on your way to a better world. And while these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform. It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status. Our struggles in this world are similar, and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward, changing ourselves and changing the world around us, will apply equally to all. I've been a Navy SEAL for 36 years, but it all began when I left UT for basic SEAL training in Coronado, California. Basic SEAL training is 6 months of long, torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacle courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep, and always being cold, wet, and miserable. It is 6 months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL. But the training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure, and hardships. To me, basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into 6 months. So here are the 10 lessons I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life. Every morning in SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room, and the first thing they'd do is inspect my bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers would be pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard, and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack. It was a simple task, mundane at best, but every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. So if you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. During SEAL training, the students— during training, the students are all broken down into boat crews. Each crew is 7 students, 3 on each side of a small rubber boat, and 1 coxswain to help guide the dinghy. Every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast. In the winter, the surf off San Diego can get to be 8 to 10 feet high, and it is exceedingly difficult to paddle through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in. Every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain. Everyone must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be unceremoniously dumped back on the beach. For the boat to make it to its destination, everyone must paddle. You can't change the world alone. You will need some help, and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the goodwill of strangers, and a strong coxswain to guide you. If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle. Over a few weeks of difficult training, my SEAL class, which started with 150 men, was down to just 42. There were now 6 boat crews of 7 men each. I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best boat crew we had was made up of the little guys, the Munchkin Crew we called them. No one was over 5 foot 5. The Munchkin boat crew had one American Indian, one African American, one Polish American, one Greek American, one Italian American, and two tough kids from the Midwest. They out-paddled, out-ran, and out-swam all the other boat crews. The big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim. But somehow these little guys from every corner of the nation and the world always had the last laugh, swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us. SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed—not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education, not your social status. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers. Several times a week, the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection. It was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform immaculately pressed, your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges. But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle, It just wasn't good enough. The instructors would find something wrong. For failing uniform inspection, the student had to run fully clothed into the surf zone, then wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a sugar cookie. You stayed in the uniform the rest of the day, cold, wet, and sandy. There were many a student who just couldn't accept the fact that all their efforts were in vain, that no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it went unappreciated. Those students didn't make it through training. Those students didn't understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform. The instructors weren't going to allow it. Sometimes, no matter how well you prepare, or how well you perform, you still end up as a sugar cookie. It's just the way life is sometimes. If you want to change the world, get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward. Every day during training, you were challenged with multiple physical events— long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics, something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards. Times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those times, those standards, your name was posted on a list. And at the end of the day, those on the list were invited to a circus. A circus was 2 hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit. No one wanted a circus. A circus meant that for that day you didn't measure up. A circus meant more fatigue, and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult and more circuses were likely. But at some time during SEAL training, everyone, everyone made the circus list. But an interesting, an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time, those students who did 2 hours of extra calisthenics got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength and physical resiliency. Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core. But if you don't— if you want to change the world, don't be afraid of the circuses. At least twice a week, the trainees were required to run the obstacle course. The obstacle course contained 25 obstacles, including a 10-foot wall, a 30-foot cargo net, a barbed wire crawl, to name a few. But the most challenging obstacle was the Slide for Life. It had a 3-level 30-foot tower at one end and a 1-level tower at the other. In between was a 200-foot-long rope. You had to climb the 3-tiered tower, and once at the top, you grabbed the rope, swung underneath the rope, and pulled yourself hand over hand until you got to the other end. The record for the obstacle course had stood for years when my class began in 1977. The record seemed unbeatable until one day a student decided to go down the slide for life headfirst. Instead of swinging his body underneath the rope and inching his way down, he bravely mounted the top of the rope and thrust himself forward. It was a dangerous move, seemingly foolish and fraught with risk. Failure could mean injury and being dropped from the course. Without hesitation, the student slid down the rope perilously fast. Instead of several minutes, it only took him half that time, and by the end of the course, he had broken the record. If you want to change the world, sometimes you have to slide down the obstacles head first. During the land warfare phase of training, the students are flown out to San Clemente Island, which lies off the coast of San Diego. The waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for the great white sharks. To pass SEAL training, there are a series of long swims that must be completed. One is the night swim. Before the swim, the instructors joyfully brief the students on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off San Clemente. They assure you, however, that no student has ever been eaten by a shark. At least not that they can remember. But you are also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position, stand your ground. Do not swim away. Do not act afraid. And if the shark, hungry for a midnight snack, darts towards you, then summons up all your strength and punch him in the snout, and he will turn and swim away. There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim, you will have to deal with them. So if you want to change the world, don't back down from the sharks. As Navy SEALs, one of our jobs is to conduct underwater attacks against enemy shipping. We practice this technique extensively during training. The ship attack mission is where a pair of SEAL divers is dropped off outside an enemy harbor and then swims well over 2 miles underwater using nothing but a depth gauge and a compass to get to the target. During the entire swim, even well below the surface, there is some light that comes through. It is comforting to know that there is open water above you, but as you approach the ship, which is tied to a pier, the light begins to fade. The steel structure of the ship blocks the moonlight. It blocks the surrounding street lamps. It blocks all ambient light. To be successful in your mission, you have to swim under the ship and find the keel, the centerline, and the deepest part of the ship. This is your objective. But the keel is also the darkest part of the ship, where you cannot see your hand in front of your face, where the noise from the ship's machinery is deafening, and where it gets to be easily disoriented and you can fail. Every SEAL knows that under the keel, at that darkest moment of the mission, is a time when you need to be calm, when you must be calm, when you must be composed, when all your tactical skills, your physical power, and your inner strength must be brought to bear. If you want to change the world, You must be your very best in the darkest moments. The 9th week of training is referred to as Hell Week. It is 6 days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment, and one special day at the mud flats. The mud flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana Sloughs, a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you. It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold, the howling wind, and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors. As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some egregious infraction of the rules, was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man until there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only 5 men would quit. Only 5 men, just 5 men, and we could get out of the oppressive cold. Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over 8 hours till the sun came up. 8 more hours of bone-chilling cold. The chattering teeth and the shivering moans of the trainees were so loud It was hard to hear anything, and then one voice began to echo through the night, one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing, but the singing persisted. And somehow the mud seemed a little warmer and the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away. If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person—a Washington, a Lincoln, King, Mandela, and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala—one person can change the world by giving people hope. So if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud. Finally, in SEAL training, there's a bell, a brass bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see. All you have to do to quit, all you have to do to quit is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o'clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to be in the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT, and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training. All you have to do is ring the bell to get out. If you want to change the world, don't ever, ever ring the bell. To the class of 2014, you are moments away from graduating, moments away from beginning your journey through life, moments away from starting to change the world for the better. It will not be easy, but you are the class of 2014, the class that can affect the lives of 800 million people in the next century. Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often, but if you take some risks, step up when the times are the toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden, and never ever give up. If you do these things, the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today. And what started here will indeed have changed the world for the better. Thank you very much. Hook 'em Horns!

Number 3 is Jim Carrey from the Maharishi International University of Management.

Please welcome to speak to us the funniest man on earth, a performer of legendary comic genius, a children's book author of profound depth, an individual of enormous compassion who is doing so much to make our world a better place, the great Jim Carrey.

What are you sitting down for? I was gonna milk that for a while. You guys can stretch that out in post, right? You can make that longer in the edit?

Thank you, Bevan.

Thank you all. Jai Guru Dev. I brought one of my paintings to show you today. I hope you guys are going to be able to see it okay. It's not one of my bigger pieces, so you might want to move down front, get a good look at it. Faculty, parents, friends, dignified guests, graduating class of 2014, and all all the dead baseball players coming out of the corn to be with us today. After the harvest, there's no place for them to hide. Fields are empty. There's no cover there. I'm here to plant a seed today, a seed that will inspire you to move forward in life with enthusiastic hearts and a clear sense of wholeness. The question is, will that seed have a chance to take root, or will I be sued by Monsanto and forced to use their seed, which may not be I'm totally Ayurvedic. Excuse me if I seem a little bit low energy tonight, today, whatever this is. I slept with my head to the north last night.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

You know how that is, right, kids? Yeah.

Woke up right in the middle of Pitta.

Couldn't get back to sleep till Vata rolled around.

Crazy. Woo! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

But I didn't freak out, you know. I used that time to eat a large meal. Connect with someone special on Tinder. Because life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. How do I know this? I don't, but I'm making sound, and that's the important thing. That's what I'm here to do. Sometimes I think that's the only thing that's important, really, you know, is just letting each other know we're here, reminding each other that we're part of a larger self. I used to think Jim Carrey is all that I was. Just a flickering light, a dancing shadow, the great nothing masquerading as something you can name. Seeking shelter in caves and foxholes dug out hastily, an archer searching for his target in the mirror, wounded only by my own arrows, begging to be enslaved, pleading for my chains.

Blinded by longing and tripping over paradise.

Can I get an amen?

You didn't think I could be serious, did you? I don't think you understand who you're dealing with. I have no limits. I cannot be contained because I'm the container.

You can't contain the container, man.

You can't contain the container. Jr.

I used to believe that who I was ended at the edge of my skin, that I had been given this little vehicle called a body from which to experience creation. And though I couldn't have asked for a sportier model, it was after all a loaner and would have to be returned. Then I learned that everything outside the vehicle was part of me too. And now I drive a convertible. Yeah, man. Top down, wind in my hair.

Woo!

I am elated and truly, truly, truly excited to be present and fully connected to you at this important moment in your journey. I hope you're ready to open the roof and take it all in. Okay, 4 more years then. They're obviously not ready. Just need some more time. I want to thank the trustees, the administrators, the faculty of MUM for creating an institution worthy of Maharishi's ideals of education, a place that teaches knowledge and experience, the knowledge and experience necessary to be productive in life. As well as enabling the students through Transcendental Meditation and ancient Vedic knowledge to slack off twice a day for an hour and a half. Don't think you're fooling me. But I guess it has some benefits. It does allow you to separate who you truly are and what's real from the stories that run through your head. You have given them the ability to walk behind the mind's elaborate set decoration and to see that there's a huge difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind and an actual dog that is going to eat you. That may sound like no big deal, but many never learn that distinction, and they spend a great deal of their lives living in fight-or-flight response. I'd like to acknowledge all of you wonderful parents. Way to go! What a fantastic job you've done for your tireless dedication, your love, your support, most of all for the attention that you paid to your children. I have a saying: Beware the unloved, because they will eventually hurt themselves or me. But when I look at this group here, you know, I feel really safe. I do. I'm just going to say it. My room is not locked. My room is not locked. No doubt some of you will turn out to be crooks, but white-collar stuff, you know, Wall Street, that type of thing, you know, crimes committed by people with self-esteem, stuff parents can still be proud of in a weird way. And to the graduating class of 2017, minus 3. You didn't let me finish. Congratulations. Yes, give yourself a round of applause, please. You are the vanguard of of knowledge and consciousness. A new wave in a vast ocean of possibilities. On the other side of that door, there's a world starving for new ideas, new leadership. I've been out there for 30 years. She's a wildcat. Oh, she'll rub up against your leg and purr until you pick her up and start petting her, and then out of nowhere, she'll swat you in the face. It can be rough out there, but that's okay because there's soft-serve ice cream with sprinkles. I guess that's what I'm really trying to say here today. Sometimes it's okay to eat your feelings. Now, fear is going to be a player in your life. You get to decide how much. You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the 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 ridiculously to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I'm saying I'm the proof that you can ask the universe for it. Please. And if it doesn't happen for you right away, it's only because the universe is so busy fulfilling my order Party size! My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. It's not the only thing he taught me though. You know, I watched the effect of my father's love and humor and how it altered the world around me. And I thought, that's something to do. That's something worth my time. It wasn't long before I started acting up. You know, people would come over to the house and they'd be greeted by a 7-year-old throwing himself down a large flight of stairs. They would say, what happened? And I would say, "I don't know, let's check the replay." I'd go back to the top of the stairs and come back down in slow motion. It was a very strange household. My father used to brag that I wasn't a ham, I was the whole pig. And he treated my talent as if it was his second chance. When I was about 28, after a decade as a professional comedian, I realized one night in LA that the purpose of my life had always been to free people from concern, just like my dad. And when I realized this, I dubbed my new devotion The Church of Freedom from Concern. The Church of FFC. And I dedicated myself to that ministry. What's yours? How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That's all you have to figure out. As someone who's done what you're about to go and do, I can tell you from experience the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. Because everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart. My choosing to free people, my choosing to free people from concern got me to the top of a mountain. Look where I am. Look what I get to do. Everywhere I go— this, I'm going to get emotional because when I tap into this, it really is extraordinary to me. I did something that made people present their best selves to me wherever I go. I am at the top of the mountain, and I was. And the only one I hadn't freed was myself. And that's when my search for identity deepened. I wondered who I'd be without my fame. Who would I be if I said things that people didn't want to hear? Or if I defied their expectations of me? What if I showed up to the party without my Mardi Gras mask and refused to flash my breasts for a handful of beads? I'll give you a moment to wipe that image out of your mind. But you guys are so ahead of the game. You already know who you are. And that peace, that peace that we're after, lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise, even beyond effort itself. You can join the game, fight the wars, play with form all you want, but to find real peace, you have to let the armor go. Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don't let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory. It's not big enough. This painting is big for a reason. It's called "High Visibility." It's about picking up the light and daring to be seen. Here's the tricky part: everyone is attracted to the light. The party host up at the top, who thinks unconsciousness is bliss and is always offering to drink from the bottles that empty you. Misery below her despises the light, can't stand when you're doing well, wishes you nothing but the worst. The Queen of Diamonds under him needs a king to build her house of cards. And the Hollow One down bottom there will cling to your leg and say, "Please don't leave me behind, for I have abandoned myself." Even those who are closest to you and most in love with you, the people you love most in the world, will find clarity confronting at times. This painting took me thousands of hours to complete, and when I was finished— thank you, thousands of hours. Yes, I'll never get them back. I'll never get them back. I was— I worked on this for so long. I was weeks and weeks like a madman alone on a scaffolding. And when I was finished, one of my friends said, this would be a cool blacklight painting. So I started over.

Welcome to Burning Man.

Some pretty crazy characters up there, but better up there than in here. You know, painting is one of the ways— thank you— painting is one of the ways I free myself from a way to stop the world through total mental, spiritual, and physical involvement. But even with that comes a feeling of divine dissatisfaction, because ultimately we are not the avatars we create. We are not the pictures on the film stock. We are the light that shines through. All else is just smoke and mirrors, distracting but not truly compelling. I've often said that I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame and— so that they could see that it's not where you're gonna find your sense of completion. Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself. My soul is not contained within the limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul. One unified field. One unified field of nothing dancing for no particular reason except maybe to comfort and entertain itself. As that shift happens in you, you won't be feeling the world, you'll be felt by it. You'll be embraced by it. Now I'm always at the beginning. I have a reset button, and I ride that button constantly. Once that button is functioning in your life, there's no story that the mind could create that will be as compelling. The imagination is always manufacturing scenarios, both good and bad, and the ego tries to keep you trapped in the mall the multiplex of the mind. Our eyes are not viewers, they are also projectors that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all the time. Fear is writing that script, and the working title is "I'll Never Be Enough." Are you going to look at a person like me and say, "How could we ever hope to reach those kind of heights, Jim? How can we make a painting that's too big for our home? How do you fly so high without a special breathing apparatus?" This is the voice of the ego. And if you listen to it, there will always be someone who's doing better than you. No matter what you gain, ego will not let you rest. It will tell you that you cannot stop until you've left an indelible mark on the earth, until you've achieved immortality. How tricky is this ego that it would tempt us with the promise of something we already possess? So I just want you to relax, you know, that's my job. Relax and dream up a good life. I had a substitute teacher from Ireland in the second in grade that told my class during morning prayer that when she wants something, anything at all, she prays for it and promises something in return, and she always gets what she wants. Well, I'm sitting at the back of the classroom, you know, thinking, wow, my family can't afford a bike, you know. So I went home and I prayed for one, and I promised I would recite the rosary every night in exchange. Broke it, broke that promise. But 2 weeks later I got home from school to find a brand-new Mustang bike with a banana seat and Easy Rider handlebars.

Yeah, from fool to cool.

My family informed me that I had won the bike in a raffle that a friend of mine had entered my name in without any— without my knowledge whatsoever. So that type of thing has been happening to me ever since. As far as I can tell, it's just about Letting the universe know what you want and working toward it while letting go of how it comes to pass. Your job is not to figure out how it's going to happen for you, but to open the door in your head, and when the door opens in real life, just walk through it. And don't worry if you miss your cue, because there's always doors opening. They keep opening. And when I say life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you, I really don't know if that's true. I'm just making a conscious choice to perceive challenges as something beneficial. So that I can deal with them in the most productive way. You'll come up with your own style. That's part of the fun. Oh, and why not take a chance on faith as well? Take a chance on faith. Not religion, but faith. Not hope, but faith. I don't believe in hope. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire and faith leaps over it. You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world, and after you walk through those doors today, you will only ever have two choices. Love or fear. Choose love and don't ever let fear turn you against your playful heart. Thank you so much. Thank you, you guys. I'm so honored.

Thank you.

Number 4, Oprah Winfrey from Harvard University.

Oh my goodness, I'm at Harvard. Wow. To President Faust, my fellow honorands, Carl, that was so beautiful, thank you so much, and James Rothenberg, Stephanie Wilson, Harvard faculty, with a special bow to my friend Dr. Henry Louis Gates, all of you alumni, with a special bow to the class of '88, your 150 $18 million. And to you, members of the Harvard Class of 2013, hello. I thank you for allowing me to be a part of the conclusion of this chapter of your lives and the commencement of your next chapter. To say that I'm honored doesn't even begin to quantify the depth of gratitude that really accompanies an honorary doctorate from Harvard. Not too many little girls from rural Mississippi have made it all the way here to Cambridge, and I can tell you that I consider today, as I sat on the stage this morning getting teary for you all and then teary for myself, I consider today a defining milestone in a very long and a blessed journey. My one hope today is that I can be a source of some inspiration. I'm going to address my remarks to anybody who's ever felt inferior or felt disadvantaged, felt screwed by life. This is a speech for the Quad. Actually, I was so honored, I wanted to do something really special for you. I wanted to be able to have you look under your seats and there would be free free master and doctor degrees, but I see, I see you got that covered already. I will be honest with you, I felt a lot of pressure over the past few weeks to come up with something that I could share with you that you hadn't heard before, because after all, y'all went to Harvard, I did not. But then I realized that you don't have to necessarily go to Harvard to have a driven, obsessive, Type A personality. But it helps. And while I may not have graduated from here, I admit that my personality is about as Harvard as they come. You know, my television career began unexpectedly. As you heard this morning, I was in the Miss Fire Prevention contest. That was when I was 16 years old in Nashville, Tennessee. And you had the requirement of having to have red hair in order to win up until the year that I entered. So they were doing the question and answer period, because I knew I wasn't going to win in the swimsuit competition. So during the question and answer period, the question came, why, young lady, what would you like to be when you grow up? And by the time they got to me, all the good answers were gone. I had seen Barbara Walters on the Today Show that morning, so I answered, "I would like to be a journalist. I would like to tell other people's stories in a way that makes a difference in their lives and the world." And as those words were coming out of my mouth, I went, "Whoa, this is pretty good. I would like to be a journalist. I want to to make a difference. Well, I was on television by the time I was 19 years old. And in 1986, I launched my own television show with a relentless determination to succeed. At first, I was nervous about the competition, and then I became my own competition, raising the bar every year, pushing, pushing, pushing myself as hard as I knew. Sound familiar to anybody here? Eventually, we did make it to the top, and we stayed there for 25 years. The Oprah Winfrey Show was number one in our time slot for 21 years, and I have to tell you, I became pretty comfortable with that level of success. But a few years ago, I decided, as you will at some point, that it was time to recalculate, find new territory, break new ground. So I ended the show and launched OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. The initials just worked out for me. So one year later, after launching OWN, nearly every media outlet had proclaimed that my new venture was a flop. Not just a flop, but a big bold flop, they call it. I can still remember the day I opened up USA Today and read the headline, "Oprah not quite standing on her own." I mean, really, USA Today. Now that's the nice newspaper. It really It was this time last year the worst period in my professional life. I was stressed and I was frustrated, and quite frankly, I was actually embarrassed. It was right around that time that President Faust called and asked me to speak here. And I thought, you want me to speak to Harvard graduates? What could I possibly say to Harvard graduates, some of the most successful graduates in the world, in the very moment when I had stopped succeeding? So I got off the phone with President Faust, and I went to the shower. It was either that or a bag of Oreos. So I chose the shower. And I was in the shower a long time, and as I was in the shower, the words of an old hymn came to me. You may not know it. It's "By and by, when the morning comes." And I started thinking about when the morning might come, because at the time I thought I was stuck in a hole. And the words came to me, "Trouble, trouble don't last always," from that hymn. "This too shall pass." And I thought, as I got out of the shower, I am going to turn this thing around, and I will be better for it. And when I do, I'm going to go to Harvard, and I'm going to speak the truth of it. So I'm here today to tell you, I have turned that network around. And it was all because I wanted to do it by the time I got to speak to you all. So thank you so much. You don't know what motivation you were for me. Thank you. I'm even prouder to share a fundamental truth that you might not have learned even as graduates of Harvard unless you studied the ancient Greek hero with Professor Nagy. Professor Nagy, as we were coming in this morning, said, Please, Ms. Winfrey, walk decisively. I shall walk decisively. This is what I want to share. It doesn't matter how far you might rise, at some point you are bound to stumble. Because if you're constantly doing what we do, raising the bar, if you are constantly pushing yourself higher, The law of averages, not to mention the myth of Icarus, predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. Now, when you're down there in a hole, it looks like failure. So this past year I had to swallow I spoon-feed those words to myself. And when you're down in the hole, when that moment comes, it's really okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost. But then, here's the key, learn from every mistake. Because every experience, encounter, and particularly your mistakes, Mistakes are there to teach you and force you into being more of who you are. And then figure out what is the next right move. And the key to life is to develop an internal moral emotional GPS that can tell you which way to go. Because now and forevermore, when you Google yourself, Your search results will read Harvard 2013. And in a very competitive world, that really is a calling card, because I can tell you as one who employs a lot of people, when I see Harvard, I sit up a little straighter and say, where is he or she? Bring them in. It's an impressive calling card that can lead to even more impressive bullets in the years ahead—lawyer, senator, CEO, scientist, physicist, winners of Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes, or late-night talk show host. But the challenge of life, I have found, is to build a resume that doesn't simply tell a story about what you want to be but it's a story about who you want to be. It's a resume that doesn't just tell a story about what you want to accomplish, but why. A story that's not just a collection of titles and positions, but a story that's really about your purpose. Because when you inevitably stumble and find yourself stuck in a hole, that is the story that will get you out. What is your true calling? What is your dharma? What is your purpose? For me, that discovery came in 1994 when I interviewed a little girl who, who had decided to collect pocket change in order to help other people in need. She raised $1,000 all by herself, and I thought, well, if that little 9-year-old girl with a bucket and a big heart could do that, I wonder what I could do. So I ask for our viewers to take up their own change collection. And in one month, just from pennies and nickels and dimes, we raised more than $3 million that we used to send one student from every state in the United States to college. That was the beginning of the Angel Network. And so what I did was I simply asked our viewers, do what you can wherever you are, from wherever you sit in life. Give me your time or your talent, your money if you have it, and they did. Extend yourself in kindness to other human beings wherever you can. And together we built 55 schools in 12 different countries and restored nearly 300 homes that were devastated by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. But the Angel Network, I've been on the air for a long time, but it was the Angel Network that actually focused my internal GPS. It helped me to decide that I wasn't just gonna be on TV every day, but that the goal of my shows, my interviews, my business, my philanthropy, all of it, whatever ventures I might pursue, would be to make clear that what unites us is ultimately far more redeeming and compelling than anything that separates me. Because what had become clear to me, and I want you to know it isn't always clear in the beginning, because as I said, I'd been on television since I was 19 years old. But around '94, I got really clear. So don't expect the clarity to come all at once. To know your purpose right away. But what became clear to me was that I was here on Earth to use television and not be used by it, to use television to illuminate the transcendent power of our better angels. So this Angel Network, it didn't just change the lives of those who were helped, but the lives of those who all also did the helping. It reminded us that no matter who we are or what we look like or what we may believe, it is both possible and more importantly, it becomes powerful to come together in common purpose and common effort. I saw something on the Bill Moore Show recently that so reminded me of this point. It was an interview with David and Francine Wheeler. They lost their 7-year-old son Ben in the Sandy Hook tragedy. And even though gun safety legislation to strengthen background checks had just been voted down in Congress at the time that they were doing this interview, they talked about how they refused to be discouraged. Francine said this, she said, our hearts are broken, but our spirits are not. I'm going to tell them what it's like to find a conversation about change that is love, and I'm going to do that without fighting them. And then her husband David added this: You simply cannot demonize or vilify someone who doesn't agree with you. Because the minute you do that, your discussion is over. And we cannot do that any longer. The problem is too enormous. There has to be some way that this darkness can be banished with light. In our political system and in the media, we often see the reflection of a country that is polarized, that is paralyzed, and his self-interest. And yet, I know you know the truth. We all know that we are better than the cynicism and the pessimism that is regurgitated throughout Washington and the 24-hour cable news cycle. Not my channel, by the way. We understand that the vast majority of people in this country believe in stronger background checks. Because they realize that we can uphold the Second Amendment and also reduce the violence that is robbing us of our children. They don't have to be incompatible. And we understand that most Americans believe in a clear path to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants who reside in this country, because it's possible to both enforce our laws and at the same time embrace the words on the Statue of Liberty that have welcomed generations of huddled masses to our shores. We can do both. And we understand— I know you do because you went to Harvard— that people from both parties and no party believe that indigent mothers and families should have access to healthy food and a roof over their heads and a strong public education. Because here in the richest nation on earth, we can afford a basic level of security and opportunity. So the question is, What are we going to do about it? Really, what are you going to do about it? Maybe you agree with these beliefs, maybe you don't. Maybe you care about these issues, or maybe there are other challenges that you, class of 2013, are passionate about. Maybe you want to make a difference by serving in government. Maybe you want to launch your own television show. Or maybe you simply want to collect some change. Your parents would appreciate that about now. The point is, your generation is charged with this task of breaking through what the body politic has thus far made impervious to change. Each of you has been blessed with this enormous opportunity of attending this prestigious school. You now have a chance to better your life, the lives of your neighbors, and also the life of our country. When you do that, let me tell you what I know for sure. That's when your story gets really good. Maya Angelou always says, "When you learn, teach. When you get, give." That, my friends, is what gives your story purpose and meaning. So you all have the power in your own way to develop your own angel network. And in doing so, your class will be armed with more tools of influence and empowerment than any other generation in history. I did it in an analog world. I was blessed with a platform that at its height reached nearly 20 million viewers a day. Now here in a world of Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and Tumblr, you can reach billions in just seconds. You're the generation that rejected predictions about your detachment and your disengagement by showing up to vote in record numbers in 2008. And when the pundits said— they said, they talked about you, they said you'd be too disappointed, you'd be too dejected to repeat that same kind of turnout in the 2012 election, and you proved them wrong by showing up in even greater numbers. That's who you are. This generation, your generation, I know, has developed a finely honed radar for BS. Can you say BS at Harvard? The spin and phoniness and artificial nastiness that saturates so much of our national debate. I know you all understand better than most that real progress requires authentic— an authentic way of being, honesty, and above all, empathy. I have to say that the single most important lesson I learned in 25 years talking every single day to people was that there is a common denominator in our human experience. Most of us, I tell you, we don't want to be divided. What we want, the common denominator that I found in every single interview, is we want to be validated. We want to be understood. I've done over 35,000 interviews in my career, and as soon as that camera shuts off, Everyone always turns to me and inevitably in their own way asks this question: Was that okay? I heard it from President Bush. I heard it from President Obama. I've heard it from heroes and from housewives. I've heard it from victims and perpetrators of crimes. I even heard it from Beyoncé and all of her Beyoncé-ness. She finishes performing, hands me the microphone, and says, "Was that okay?" Friends and family, yours, enemies, strangers, in every argument, in every encounter, every exchange, I will tell you, they all want to know one thing: Was that okay? Did you hear me? Do you see me? Did what I say mean anything to you? And even though this is the college where Facebook was born, my hope is that you will try to go out and have more face-to-face conversations with people you may disagree with. That you'll have the the courage to look them in the eye and hear their point of view. And help make sure that the speed and distance and anonymity of our world doesn't cause us to lose our ability to stand in somebody else's shoes and recognize all that we share as a people. This is imperative for you as an individual and for our success as a nation. There has to be some way that this darkness can be banished with light, says the man whose little boy was massacred on just an ordinary Friday in December. So whether you call it soul or spirit or higher self, intelligence, there is, I know this, There is a light inside each of you, all of us, that illuminates your very human beingness if you let it. And as a young girl from rural Mississippi, I learned long ago that being myself was much easier than pretending to be Barbara Walters. Although when I first started, because I had Barbara in my head, I would try to sit like Barbara, talk like Barbara, move like Barbara. And then one night I was on the news, reading the news, and I called Canada "Canada." And that was the end of me being Barbara. I cracked myself up on TV, couldn't stop laughing, and my real personality came through. And I figured out, oh gee, I can be a much better Oprah than I could be a pretend Barbara. I know that I know that you all might have a little anxiety now and hesitation about leaving the comfort of college and putting those Harvard credentials to the test. But no matter what challenges or setbacks or disappointments you may encounter along the way, you will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal. There really is only one, and that is this: to fulfill the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being. You want to max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family, and the people around you. Theologian Howard Thurman said it best. He said, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that." Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. The world needs people like Michael Stolzenberg from Fort Lauderdale. When Michael was just 8 years old, Michael nearly died from a bacterial infection that cost him both of his hands and both of his feet. And in an instant, this vibrant little boy became a quadruple amputee, and his life was changed forever. But in losing who he once was, Michael discovered who he wanted to be. He refused to sit in that wheelchair all day and feel sorry for himself, so with prosthetics, he learned to walk and run and play again. He joined his middle school lacrosse team, and last month when he learned that so many victims of the Boston Marathon bombing would become new amputees, Michael decided to banish that darkness with light. Michael and his brother Harris created MikeysRun.com to raise $1 million for other amputees by the time Harris runs the 2014 Boston Marathon. More than 1,000 miles away from here, these two young brothers are bringing people together to support this Boston community the way their community came together to support Michael. And when this 13-year-old man was asked about his fellow amputees, he said this: First, they will be sad. They're losing something they will never get back. And that's scary. I was scared. But they'll be okay. They just don't know that yet. We might not always know it. We might not always see it or hear it on the news or even feel it in our daily lives, but I have faith that no matter what, Class of 2013, you will be okay. And you will make sure our country is okay. I have faith because of that 9-year-old girl who went out and collected the change. I have faith because of David and Francine Wheeler. I have faith because of Michael and Harris Stolzenberg. And I have faith because of you, the network of angels sitting here today. One of them, Khadijah Williams, who came to Harvard 4 years ago. Khadijah had attended 12 schools in 12 years, living out of garbage bags amongst pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers, homeless, going into department stores, Walmart, in the morning to bathe herself so that she wouldn't smell in front of her classmates. And today she graduates as a member of the Harvard class of 2013. From time to time, you may stumble, fall. You will for sure— count on this, no doubt— you will have questions and you will have doubts about your path. But I know this: if you're willing to listen, to be guided by that still small voice that is the GPS within in yourself, to find out what makes you come alive, you will be more than okay. You will be happy. You will be successful. And you will make a difference in the world. Congratulations, class of 2013. Congratulations to your family and friends. Good luck. And thank you for listening. Is that okay?

Also, if you want to take real action after this video, I made a free worksheet just for you. It covers the top lessons from today, gives you space to write your biggest takeaways, and helps you build a simple action plan. It's 100% free. Just click the link in the description to go grab it. I'll see you there.

Number 5, Denzel Washington from the University of Pennsylvania.

Please join me in welcoming Denzel Washington.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I am obviously the most unorganized. Everybody else has nice boxes to bring their script up in. I just like kind of got it all messed up here and put it inside of a magazine. So, in fact, I don't even have it in the right order. Wait a minute, let me get it in the right order. So if it starts like flying around the stage, just, you know, run around and grab it for me and bring it back up here for me. I'll keep going as I can. President Gutmann, Provost Price, Board Chair Cohen, fellow honorees, beautiful honorees. And today's graduates. I'm honored and grateful for the invitation today. It's always been great to be on the Penn campus. I've been here before a lot of times for basketball games. My son played at the Palestra, played on the basketball team. I— yeah, that's right. Played on the basketball team. Coach didn't give him enough playing time. We'll talk about that later. No, but I'm really— I'm really pleased with the progress that Coach Allen has made. And no, I do. I am. I really am. And I hope him the best success in the future. And, you know, I always get a warm welcome when I come when I come to Philadelphia, except on the few occasions where I wear my Yankee cap. I mean, what's wrong with that? I can't suddenly just switch up and wear a Philly cap. I mean, it's like taking your life in your hands around here when you wear a Yankee cap. I'm telling you. I met a couple of guys and they were like, hey, we don't We love you, Denzel, but you know, you're walking around with that hat on, we don't care who you are. So you'll be happy to see that I'm not wearing my Yankee cap today. I'm wearing my Yankee socks, my Yankee t-shirt, my Yankee jock shorts, Yankee underwear, my Yankee toe warmers, but not my Yankee cap. But still, I'll be honest with you, I'm a little nervous. I'm not used to speaking at a graduation of this magnitude. It's a little overwhelming. It's out of my comfort zone. You dress me up in Army fatigues or throw me on top of a moving train, someone said unstoppable, or ask me to play Malcolm X, Rubin Hurricane Carter, or Alonzo from Training Day, I can do that. But a commencement speech, it's It's a very serious affair and it's a very different ballgame. There are literally thousands and thousands of people here. And for those who say, well, you're a movie star, millions of people watch you and watch you speak all the time. Well, that's true, that's technically true, but I'm not actually in the theater watching them watching me. I think that makes makes sense. I mean, I'm not there when they cough or fidget around or pull out their iPhones or text their boyfriend or scratch their behinds or whatever it is they're doing in the movie theater. But from up here, I can see every single one of you, and that makes me uncomfortable. So please don't pull out your iPhones and your texts. Don't text your boyfriend. Until after I'm done, please. If you have to scratch your behind, I mean, I understand. Go ahead. I was thinking about this speech, what I should say. I figured the best way to keep your attention would be to talk about something, you know, really like juicy Hollywood stuff. Like, I thought I could talk about me and Russell Crowe getting in arguments on the set of American gangster or— but I said, no, no, no, you're a group of high-minded intellectuals. You're not interested in that. Or maybe not. I thought about a private moment I had backstage with Angelina Jolie in a dressing room after the Oscars. But I said, no, I don't think so. This is an Ivy League school. And I mean, Angelina Jolie half naked in a dressing room. Who wants to hear about that? No one. No one. No one. No one. This is Penn. That stuff would never go over well over here. Maybe at Drexel, but not over here. Woo! I'm in trouble now. So I was back to square one, feeling the pressure. So now you're probably thinking, if it was going to be this difficult, this much pressure, why did I even accept today's invitation in the first place? Well, you know, my son goes here. That's number one. That's a good reason. And I always like to check to see how my money's being spent. And I'm sure there's some parents out there who can relate to what I'm talking about. Yeah. Mm. To everybody upstairs. And there were some other good reasons for me to show up. Sure, I got an Academy Award, but I never had something called a magic meatball after waiting in line for half an hour at the food truck. Yeah? Yes? Yes, I talked face-to-face with President Obama, but I never talked face-to-face with a guy named Queder who sings bad songs over at Smoke's on Tuesday night. I never been to Bui's. I never been to Hemo's. Yes, I have played a detective who battles demons, but I've never been to a school in my life where the squirrel population has gone bananas. I mean, they're breaking into dorm rooms, they're walking around campus. I think I saw some carrying books on their way to class. So I had to be here. I had to come. Even though I was afraid I might make a fool of myself. In fact, if you really want to know the truth, I had to come exactly because I might make a fool with myself. Now, what am I talking about? Here it is. I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing. Nelson Mandela said, there is no passion to be found playing small and settling for a life that's less than the one you're capable of living. Now I'm sure in your experiences in school and applying to college and picking your major and deciding what you want to do with life, I'm sure people have told you to make sure you have something to fall back on. Make sure you got something to fall back on, honey. But I never understood that concept, having something to fall back on. If I'm going to fall, I don't want to fall back on anything. Except my faith. I want to fall forward. I figure at least this way I'll see what I'm going to hit.

Fall forward.

This is what I mean. Reggie Jackson struck out 2,600 times in his career, the most in the history of baseball. But you don't hear about the strikeouts. People remember the home runs.

Fall forward.

Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Because the 1,001st was the light bulb.

Fall forward.

Every failed experiment is one step closer to success. You've got to take risks, and I'm sure you've probably heard that before, but I want to talk to you about why that's Why is it so important? I got 3 reasons, and then you can pick up your iPhones. First, you will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There's no doubt about it. And I know that's probably not a traditional message for a graduation ceremony, but hey, I'm telling you. Embrace it because it's inevitable. And I should know. In the acting business, you fail all the time. Early on in my career, I auditioned for a part in a Broadway musical. Perfect role for me, I thought, except for the fact that I can't sing. So I'm in the wings, I'm about to go on stage, but the guy in front of me, he's singing like like Pavarotti. He's just going on and on and on, and I'm just shrinking. I'm getting smaller and smaller. So they say, oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And you'll be hearing from us. So I come out with my little sheet music, and it was Just My Imagination by the Temptations. That's what I came up with. I hand it to the accompanist and she looks at it and looks at me and looks out at the director and is like, "All right." So I start, you know, I'm going to sing. I'm like, "It's just my imagination once again and they're cutting away with me." And they're not saying anything, so I'm thinking I'm doing it. I started getting into it. Hitler's just my actor. Running. They said, oh yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you very much, Mr. Washington, thank you. So I assumed I didn't get the job. But the next part of the audition, he called me back. The next part of the audition is the acting part of the audition. So I'm like, hey, okay, maybe I can't sing, but I know I can act. So they pair me with this guy, and again, I didn't know about musical theater, and musical theater is big, so they can reach everyone all the way in the back of the stadium. And I'm more from a realistic, naturalistic kind of acting where you actually talk to the person next to you. So I don't know what my line was. My line was, "Well, hand me the cup." And his line was, "Well, I will hand you the cup, my dear. The cup will be there." to be handed to you. I said, okay, well, should I give you the cup back? Oh yes, you should give it back to me because you know that is my cup and it should be given back to me. I didn't get the job. But here's the thing. I didn't quit. I didn't fall back. I walked out of there to prepare for the next audition and the next audition and the next audition. I prayed. I prayed and I prayed. But I continued to fail. And fail and fail, but it didn't matter because you know what? There's an old saying, you hang around the barbershop long enough, sooner or later you're going to get a haircut. So you will catch a break, and I did catch a break. Last year I did a play called Fences on Broadway. Someone talked about it. Won the Tony Award. And I didn't have to sing, by the way. But here's the kicker. It was at the Court Theatre. It was at the same theater that I failed that first audition 30 years prior. The point is, and I'll pick up the pace, the point is every graduate Every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed. But do you have the guts to fail? Here's my second point about failure. If you don't fail, you're not even trying. I'll say it again. If you don't fail, you're not even trying. My wife told me this great expression. To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. Les Brown's a motivational speaker. He made an analogy about this. He says, imagine you're on your deathbed, and standing around your deathbed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential. The ghost of the ideas you never acted on. The ghost of the talents you didn't use. And they're standing around your bed angry, disappointed, and upset. They say, we came to you because You could have brought us to life, they say, and now we have to go to the grave together. So I ask you today, how many ghosts are going to be around your bed when your time comes? You've invested a lot in your education and people have invested in you. And let me tell you, the world needs your talents, man, does it ever. I just got back from Africa like 2 days ago, so if I'm rambling on, it's because I'm jet-lagged. I just got back from South Africa. It's a beautiful country, but there are places there with terrible poverty that need help. And Africa is just the tip of the iceberg. The Middle East needs your help. Japan needs your help. Alabama needs your help. Tennessee needs your help. Louisiana needs your help. Philadelphia needs your help. The world The world needs a lot, and we need it from you. We really do. We need it from you young people. I mean, I'm not speaking for the rest of us up here, but I know I'm getting a little grayer. We need it from you, the young people, because remember this. So you got to get out there. You got to give it everything you got, whether it's your time, your talent, your prayers, or your treasures. Because remember this: you will never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. I'll say it again. You will never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. You can't take it with you. The Egyptians tried it. And all they got was robbed. So the question is, what are you going to do with what you have? I'm not talking about how much you have. Some of you are business majors, some of you are theologians, nurses, sociologists. Some of you have money, some of you have patience, some of you have kindness, some of you have love, some of you have the gift of long-suffering. Suffering, whatever it is, whatever your gift is, what are you going to do with what you have? All right, now here's my last point about failure. Sometimes it's the best way to figure out where you're going. Your life will never be a straight path. I began at Fordham University as a pre-med student. I, I took a course called Cardiac morphogenesis. I still can't say it. Cardiac morphogenesis. I couldn't read it, I couldn't say it, I sure couldn't pass it. So then I decided to go into pre-law, then journalism, and with no academic focus, my grades took off in their own direction. Yeah, down. I was a 1.0 2.8 GPA one semester, and the university very politely suggested that it might be better to take some time off. I was 20 years old. I was at my lowest point. And then one day, and I remember the exact day, March 27th, 1975, I was helping my mother in her beauty shop. My mother owned a beauty shop up in Mount Vernon. And there was this older woman who was considered one of the elders in the town, And I didn't know her personally, but I was looking in the mirror, and every time I looked at the mirror, I could see her behind me, and she was staring at me. She just kept looking at me. Every time I looked at her, she kept giving me these strange looks. So she finally took the dryer off her head and said something I'll never forget. First of all, she said, somebody give me a piece of paper. Give me a piece of paper. She said, young boy, I have a prophecy, a spiritual prophecy. She said, "You are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people." Now mind you, I'm 20 years old, I'm flunked out of school. In fact, like a wiseass, I'm thinking to myself, maybe she's got something in that crystal ball about me getting back into school next fall. But maybe she was on to something because later that summer, while working as a counselor at a YMCA camp in Connecticut, we put on a talent show for the campers. And after the show, another counselor came up to me and asked, have you ever thought about acting? You're good at that. So when I got back to Fordham that fall, I got in. I changed my major once again for the last time. And in the years that followed, just as that woman prophesied, I have traveled the world and I have spoken to millions of people through my movies. Millions who up till this day couldn't see me, I, or who who up till this day I couldn't see while I was talking to them, and they couldn't see me. They could only see the movie. They couldn't see the real me. But I see you today, and I'm encouraged by what I see, and I'm strengthened by what I see, and I love what I see. One more page, and I'll shut up. Let me conclude with this one final point, and actually the President kind of brought it up. It has to do with the movie Philadelphia. She stole my material. Many years ago, I did this movie called Philadelphia. We filmed some of the scenes right here on campus. Philadelphia came out in 1993. Most of you were probably still in diapers. Some of the professors too. But that cracked me up. But it was a good movie. Rent it on, what do you call it, Netflix. It's a good movie. Rent it. I get 23 cents every time you rent it. Please, let me. True. Parents up there, rent it, Netflix, please. Tell your friends, too. It's about a man played by Tom Hanks who's fired from his law firm because he has AIDS. He wants to sue the firm, but no one's willing to represent him until a homophobic ambulance chaser lawyer played by yours truly takes on the case. In a way, if you watch the movie, you'll see everything I'm talking about today. You'll see what I mean about taking risks or being willing to fail. Because taking risks is not just about going for a job. It's also about knowing what you know and what you don't know. It's about being open to people and to ideas. In the course of the film, the character I play begins to take small steps, small risks. He very, very, very slowly begins to overcome his fears. And I feel ultimately his heart becomes flooded with love. And I can't think of a better message as we send you off today, to not only take risks, but to be open to life, to accept new views, and to be open to new opinions. To be willing to speak at a commencement at one of the best universities in the country even though you're scared stiff. While it may be frightening, it will also be rewarding. Because the chances you take, the people you meet, the people you love, the faith that you have, that's what's going to define you. So members of the class of 2011, this is your mission. When you leave the friendly confines of Philly, never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you got. And when you fall throughout life, and maybe even tonight after a few many glasses of champagne, remember this: fall forward. Congratulations. I love you. God bless you. I respect you.

Number 6, Bill Gates from Harvard University.

Thank you, President Bach, former President Rudenstein, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation, and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially the graduates. I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this. Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree. I want to thank Harvard for this honor. I'll be changing my job next year, and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume. I applaud the graduates for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson called me Harvard's most successful dropout. I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class. I did the best of everyone who failed. But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business. Business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I'd spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today. Harvard was a phenomenal experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes that I hadn't even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe in Courier House. There were always a lot of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew that I didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the antisocial group. We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people. Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were math-science types. The combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean. That's where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee success. One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975 when I made a call from Courier House to a company in Albuquerque, New Mexico that had begun making the world's first personal computer. I offered to sell them software. I worried they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me. Instead they said, "We're not quite ready. Come see us in a month," which was a good thing because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on the extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft. What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence. It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege. And though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on. But taking a serious look back, I do have one big regret. I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world, the appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair. I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences. But humanity's greatest advance America's greatest successes are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality healthcare, or broad economic Reducing inequity is the highest human achievement. I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country, and I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries. It took me decades to find out. You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how, in this age of accelerating technology, we can finally take on these inequities and we can solve them. Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause, and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it? For Melinda and I, the challenge is the same. How can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have. During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who are dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country: measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever. One disease a disease that I had never heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million children each year, none of them in the United States. We were shocked. We had assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren't being delivered. If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves, this can't be true, but if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving. So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked, how could the world let these children die? The answer is simple and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. So the children died because their mothers and fathers Our founding fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system. But you and I have both. We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism. If we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least to earn a living serving people who are suffering from the great inequities. We can also press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes. If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business, and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. Now this task is open-ended. It can never be finished, but a conscious effort to answer this challenge can change the world. I'm optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. They say inequity has been with us since the beginning and will be with us until the end because people just don't care. I completely disagree. I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with. All of us here in this yard at one time or another all have seen human tragedies that broke our heart, and yet we did nothing, not because we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted. The barrier to change is not too little caring, it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps. Even with the advent of the internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. They promise investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future. But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say, of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, 0.5% were on this plane. We're determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the 1/2 of 1%. The problem is not just the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths. We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new, and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background where it's easy to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's difficult to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to help. And so we look away. If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step. Cutting through the complexity to find a solution. Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven answers any time an organization or individual asks, "How can I help?" then we can get action, and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares, and makes it hard for their caring to matter. Cutting through complexity to find solutions runs through 4 predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-impact approach, deliver the technology ideal for that approach, and in the meantime, use the best application of technology you already have, whether it's something sophisticated like a new drug or something simple like a bed net. The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifelong immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations are funding vaccine research, but their work is likely to take more than a decade. So in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand, and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior. Pursuing that goal starts the 4-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working, and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century, which is to surrender to complexity and quit. The final step after seeing the problem and finding an approach, is to measure the impact of the work and to share that success or failure so that others can learn from the efforts. You have to have the statistics, of course. You have to be able to show, for example, that a program is vaccinating millions more, millions more children. You have to be able to show, for example, a decline decline in the number of children dying from the diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government. But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers. You have to convey the human impact of the work. So people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected. I remember going to the World Economic Forum some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions. Think of the thrill if you could save just one person's life. Then multiply that by millions. Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on. Ever. So boring even I couldn't stand it. What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software, but why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives? You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. The way to do that is another complex question. Still, I'm optimistic. Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new. They can help us make the most of our caring, and that's why the future can be different from the past. The defining and ongoing innovations of this age— biotechnology, the personal computer, and the internet— give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and and death from preventable disease. 60 years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement, and he announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said, I quote, "I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass The multiplicity of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation. 30 years after Marshall made his address, which was 30 years ago, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant. The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunity more opportunities for learning and communicating. The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can bring in to work together on the same problem. And it scales up the rate of potential innovation to a staggering degree. I think we agree. At the same time, for every person who has access to this technology, 5 people don't. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion. Smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world. We need as many people as possible to gain access to this technology because these advances are triggering a revolution in human— in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, small organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago. Members of the Harvard family, here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world. For what purpose? There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name. Let me make a request of the deans and the professors, the intellectual leaders here at Harvard. As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourself, should our best minds be more dedicated to solving our biggest problems? Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students know about the depth of global poverty, the prevalence of world hunger, the scarcity the girls kept out of school, the children who die from diseases we can cure? Should the world's most privileged learn about the lives of the world's least privileged? These are not rhetorical questions. You will answer them with your policies. My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here, never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before I was married, she hosted a bridal event at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, But she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said, "From those to whom much is given, much is expected." When you consider what those of us here in this at Harvard have been given in talent, privilege, and opportunity, there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us. In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue, a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal. But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them. Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on big inequities. I feel sure it will be one of the great experiences of your lives. You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with modest effort. You have more than we had. You must start sooner and carry on longer. And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities, on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity. Good luck.

Number 7: John F.

Kennedy from American University. President Anderson, members of the faculty, Board of Trustees, distinguished guests, my old colleague Senator Bob Byrd, who has earned his degree through many years of attending Knight Law School while I am earning mine in the next 30 minutes. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. This is a young and growing university But it has already fulfilled Bishop Hearst's enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and to the conduct of the public's business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color or their creed, The Methodists of this area and the nation deserve the nation's thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating. Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I'm confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution who continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support. There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university, wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities, and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to towers to campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university because it was, he said, a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see. I have therefore chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds. And the truth too rarely perceived, and that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of a peace do I mean, and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on Earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age where a single nuclear weapon contains almost 10 times the explosive force delivered by all the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles, which can only destroy and never create, is not the only, much less the most efficient means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war, and frequently the words of the pursuers fall on deaf ears, but we have no more urgent task. Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament, and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitudes. As individuals and as a nation, for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward, by examining his own attitude towards the possibilities of peace, towards the Soviet Union, towards the course of the Cold War, and towards freedom and peace here at home. First, examine our attitude towards peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable. That mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man, and man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and of spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again. I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams, but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. And second, let us reexamine our attitude towards the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on military strategy and find on page after page wholly baseless and incredible claims, such as the allegation that American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of war, that there is a very real threat of a preventative war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union, and that the political aims, and I quote, of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries, and to achieve world domination by means of aggressive war. Truly, as it was written long ago, the wicked flee when no man pursueth. Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements, to realize the extent of the gulf between us, but it is also a warning, a warning to to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats. No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture, in acts of courage. Among the many of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless more were injured. Millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation's territory, including two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago. Today, should total war ever break out again, no matter how, our two countries will be the primary target. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours. And even in the Cold War, which brings burdens and dangers to so many countries, including this nation's closest allies, our two countries bear the heaviest burdens, for we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle, with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other, and new weapons be getting counterweapons. In short, both the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours, and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest. So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, At least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal. Third, let us reexamine our attitude towards the Cold War. Remembering we're not engaged in a debate seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different. We must therefore persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communist interest to agree on a genuine peace. And above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy or of a collective death wish for the world. To secure these ends, America's weapons are non-provocative. Carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility, for we can seek a relaxation of tensions without relaxing our God. And for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people, but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on Earth. Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system, a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of ensuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can can finally be abolished. At the same time, we seek to keep peace inside the non-communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite communist intervention, or which threaten to erupt into war. The communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today, for there can be no doubt that if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured. This will require a new effort to achieve world law, a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. An increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of others' actions which might may occur at a time of crisis. We have also been talking in Geneva about our first-step measures of arms controls, designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and reduce the risk of accidental war. Our primary long-range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament, designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this government since the 1920s. It has been urgently sought by the past 3 administrations. And however dim the prospects are today, we intend to continue this effort, to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and the possibilities of disarmament are. The only major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so taken so far would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963—the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security. It would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this This goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards. I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard. First, Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, Khrushchev and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow, looking towards early agreement on a comprehensive test ban treaty. Our hope must be tempered— our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history, but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind. Second, to make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on this matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it. Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude towards peace and freedom. Freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives, as many of you who are graduating today will have an opportunity to do by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home. But wherever we are, we must all in our daily lives live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete. It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government—local, state, and national—to to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within our authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever the authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of others and respect the law of the land. All this— all this is not unrelated to world peace. When a man's way pleases the Lord, the scriptures tell us, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights? The right to live out our lives without fear of devastation, the right to breathe air as nature provided it, the right of future generations to a healthy existence. While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests, and the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interests of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can, if it is sufficiently effective in its its enforcement, and it is sufficiently in the interest of its signers, offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race. The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough, more than enough, of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it, but we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we must labor on, not towards a strategy of annihilation, but towards a strategy of peace.

Number 8, Conan O'Brien from Dartmouth University.

So without further ado, I present the one, the only, the lovable Mr.

Conan O'Brien. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

All right. Hi, how are you? Hi. She's holding a child.

Ah.

It was one night, huh? So first things first, where's Liz? You out here? Get it on. I'll be hanging around afterwards. I'd like to begin by thanking the class marshals for inviting me here today. The last time I was invited to Harvard, it cost me $110,000, so I was reluctant to show up. I'm going to start before I really begin by announcing I want to be half as funny as tomorrow's commencement speaker, moral philosopher and economist Amartya Sen. That's the job. Must get more laughs than seminal wage-price theoretician. By the way, enjoy that. Bring a calculator. It's gonna be a nerd fest. Students of the Harvard Class of 2000, 15 years ago I sat where you sit now, and I thought exactly what you are now thinking. What's going to happen to me? Will I find my place in the world? Am I really graduating a virgin? Still have 24 hours. Roommate's mom, very hot. Swear she's checking me out. There was that Rob Lowe movie. Being here today, being here today on a sincere note is very special for me. I do miss this place. I especially miss Harvard Square. Let me tell you, you don't know this, Harvard Square is extremely unique. Nowhere else in the world will you find a man wearing a turban and a Red Sox jacket working in a lesbian bookstore. But I'm just glad my dad's working. It's a personal choice. It's particularly sweet for me to be here today because, this is true, when I graduated I wanted very badly to be a Class Day speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected. So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech. This is the actual speech from 15 years ago. Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that classic "Aha" tune, which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like to make several predictions about what the future will hold. I believe that one day a simple governor from a small southern state will rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack political skill, but will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority. I believe that justice will prevail, and one day the Berlin Wall will crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under communist rule. I believe that one day a high-speed network of interconnected computers will spring up worldwide, so enriching people that they will lose their interest in idle chitchat and pornography. And finally, I believe that one day I will have a television show on a major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I will use to reenact crimes and help catch at-large criminals. And I had a section on the death of Wall Street. We don't need to hear about that. The point is that although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, demigod if you will, potential husband material, maybe the father of your child— prove it, baby— I came here, I came here in the fall of 1981, and I lived here at Hallworthy. Actually, I'm a student much like you. That's just sad. I was, without exaggeration, this is true, the ugliest picture in the freshman Facebook. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, this is a true story, I actually, I thought it was for their records. So I literally, just like their private records, like in a file. So I jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for for a morgue shot. Now this is what happened. To make matters worse, when the Facebook came out, they put my picture right next to Katharine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress, true story, who was accepted to the class of '85, but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of Dynasty. Folks, my photo would've looked bad on any page, but next to Katharine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was 6 feet 4 inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. True. Recently I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model, and according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan. After freshman year, I moved to Mather House. Yeah, Mather House. Mather House, incidentally, was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In fact, if Hitler had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot himself a year earlier. Saved us a lot of trouble. All the woo-woo people from Mather House are a little bummed now. They're like, "Wah!

Oh, no!

He's a mean man!" 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I had my Class Day, you students would have been 7 years old. 7 years old. Do you realize what that means? Back then, I could have beaten any of you in a fight, and I mean really badly. Like, no contest at all. Like, if anyone here has a time machine, seriously, I will kick your 7-year-old butt right now. A lot has happened in 15 years, though. When you think about it, we come from completely different worlds. When I graduated in 1985, we watched movies starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come from a time when we huddled around our TV sets and watched The Cosby Show on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a show called Cosby on CBS. In 1985, we drove cars with with driver's side airbags. But if you told us that one day there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for witchcraft. Of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I remember well the great uncertainty of this day, the anxiety. Many of you were justifiably nervous about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard and hurling yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard grad school. A plum job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex card, then a plum job at your father's firm. But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here at Harvard is a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me, your education is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read The Merchant of Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the island of Sardinia Spain. Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in Russia or that guy in South America— do you know the guy?— will be with you for the rest of your life. There's also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. This is true. I know for a fact that right now a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mount Auburn Cemetery shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he has a brass toe ring and they aim to get it. Now imagine, no offense, buddy, but you got a lot of nerve. These people just raised $2.5 billion $2.5 billion, and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's basically how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal when you're sort of tired and most vulnerable, and a voice asks you for money. Now, knowing you've read in the paper that they just raised $2.5 billion, you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause, and the voice on the other end of the line says, Says, "We don't need it, we just want it." Carpe diem. What else can you expect? Let me see just by your applause quickly who here wrote a thesis. Wrote a thesis? Alright, that's nice, that's nice. A lot of hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis, and no one is ever going to care. I wrote a thesis, this is true, I don't lie, Literary Progeria in the Works of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that during my discussions with Pauley Shore, it doesn't come up much. For 3 years after graduation, I wanted to show it to anyone, so I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I could show it to a policeman in case I was pulled over. "License, that's registration, cultural exploration of the man-child in the—" "Right, I'll go." What else can you expect in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and reenter society, one thing is certain: everyone out there is going to hate you. Jacob is right. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations, the correct response to, "Where did you go to school?" is, "School? I never had much in the way of book learning and such." Then get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

Go.

You see, kids, you're in for a lifetime of, "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction, and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work, and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants, and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Get your head stuck in your niece's doll ball house because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant, and it's Uncle Conan. You went to Harvard? Let's just slow this thing down just a little bit. You see, to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I'm going to take— I'm going to change up a little bit here. I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell it simply. I'm going to tell it Honestly, I'm going to tell you my story because first of all, I think my perspective may give many of you hope, and secondly, it's such a cool, amazing rush to be in front of 6,000 people and just talk about yourself. So it's just great. It's just so cool, and I can take my time. Have water if I want, or not. You have to wait. Kids excited? Parents, who is this man? What's What's wrong with Ted Koppel? That guy's on something. You see, kids, after graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles. I got a 3-week contract at a small cable show. I got a $380-a-month apartment, terrible dump. And I bought a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year because they found out that technically it's not a car. Quick tip, graduates: no 4-cylinder used vehicle should have a racing stripe. So I worked at that show for, you know, about a year, year or so, feeling pretty good about myself, when one day they told me they were letting me go. I was fired. I hadn't saved any money, so I tried to get another job in television as best I could, and I couldn't find one. Couldn't find any job in television. So with nowhere else to turn, True story, I went to a temp agency and I filled out a questionnaire. And I made damn sure that they knew I had been to Harvard, that I had written this thesis, and that I expected the very best treatment. And so the next day I was sent to the Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. Now, when you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, You are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose graduate school. You see their faces everywhere, in coffee cups, you see them in fish tanks, you think you're going crazy, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man in good conscience would ever wear. I tried a lot of things during this period, acting in corporate infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theater. I even took a job entertaining at a 7-year-old's birthday party. In desperate need of work, I put I put together some sketches and scored a job at the fledgling Fox Network as a writer and performer for a brand new show called The Wilton North Report. I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television, and in a way it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when 4 weeks later news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into spontaneous applause. That had never happened before in television. Eventually though, I got a big break. I had submitted, along with my writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live, and after a year and a half, they read it, and they gave us a 2-week tryout. The 2 weeks turned into 2 seasons, and I felt, hey, this is success. I'm successful now. Successful enough to write a TV pilot for an original sitcom, and when the network decided to make it, feeling good, I leave Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live. Tell them to go to hell. Now this TV show was going to be groundbreaking, this new one. It was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West. It was going to be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It was going to change all the rules. And here's what happened. When the pilot aired, it was the second lowest-rated television show of all time. It's actually tied with a test pattern they show in Nova So I was 28, once again no job. I had good writing credits in New York, but I was filled with disappointment and I had no idea what I was going to do next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips, and that is when The Simpsons saved my life. I got a job there. I started writing episodes about Springfield getting a monorail or Homer going to college. I was finally put putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue for a man who's so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own heartbeat. Life was good. And then an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way, a chance to audition for host of the new late-night show. Well, I took the opportunity very seriously, but at the time, I have to be honest, I had the relaxed confidence of someone who who knew he had no real shot. So I couldn't fear losing a great job that I had never had, that I couldn't hope to have. And I think that actually that attitude made the difference. I will never forget being in The Simpsons recording basement that morning when the phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane. But a week later, I got another call. I got the job. So this finally was undeniably it. The truly life-altering break that I'd always dreamed of. And I went to work. I gathered all my funny friends and poured all my years of comedy experience into building the show over the summer. I gathered the talent, figured out the sensibility, found Max, found Andy, found my people. We debuted on September 13th, 1993, and I was really happy, really happy with our effort. I felt like I had seized the moment, that I had put my very best foot forward. And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic Tom Shales wrote in the Washington Post. His actual quote: O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He has dark beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. Shut up. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave. He's the host who should never have come. Let The Late Show with Conan O'Brien become The Late Late Show, and may the host return to Conan oblivion whence he came, end quote. There's more, but it gets kind of mean. Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive, and I'll be honest with you, it hurt like you would not believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I have had a lot of success. I have had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Sway and Lev, that was just stupid.

Don't do that.

I've dwelled on my failures today because as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed, your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I left the cocoon of Harvard. I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live. I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and I'll be honest with you, today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So that's what I wish for all of you. The bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally, give this guy a hard time, know that your mistakes are your own unique way way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over. If you'll indulge me for just a second, I'd like to read a little something from just this year. Somehow Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the late-night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard, and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possibly the greatest host ever. Ladies and gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning as proof that when all else fails, you always have delusion. I will go now to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this fine institution institution even more. But let me leave you with one last thought. If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk. Thank you. Number 9, Jeff Bezos from Princeton University.

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially Days of Our Lives. My grandparents belonged to a caravan club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who traveled together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we'd join the caravan. We'd hitch up the Airstream to my grandfather's car, and off we'd go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshiped my grandparents, and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving, and my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips. And I hated the smell. At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage, figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life. I think it might have been 2 minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per day, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette, and so on. When I was satisfied that I had come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At 2 minutes per puff, you've taken 9 years off of your life!" I have a very vivid memory of what happened next. And it was not what I had expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and my arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year, and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the back seat. I didn't know what to do while my grandmother was crying. My grandfather, who'd been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time. Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever. What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift. Kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy. They're given, after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful. And if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices. This is a group with many gifts. I'm sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I'm confident that's the case because admission is competitive, and if there weren't some signs that you're clever, the Dean of Admissions wouldn't have let you in. Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans, plodding as we are, will astonish ourselves. We'll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we'll assemble small machines that can enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but inevitable news that we've synthesized life. In the coming years, we'll not only synthesize it but engineer it to specifications. I believe you'll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton—all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me. How will you use these gifts, and will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices? I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that web usage was growing at 2,300% per year. I had never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast. The idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles, something that simply couldn't exist in the physical world, was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I had been married for a year. I told my wife, Mackenzie, that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most startups don't, and I wasn't sure what would happen after that. Mackenzie, also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row, told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn't work very well out of an umbrella and aluminum foil, baking pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion. I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I was going to start a company selling books on the internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job." That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life The life you author from scratch on your own begins. How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions? Will you follow dogma, or will you be original? Will you choose a life of ease or a life of service and adventure? Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions? Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize? Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act How will you act when you fall in love? Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless? Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind? I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection, narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story. The telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck.

At number 10, the last one before a very special bonus speech, is Chadwick Boseman from Howard University.

First, giving honor to the Creator and my ancestors on whose shoulders I stand. Happy Mother's Day to my mom. She is not here in attendance, but But by tomorrow, she will have seen this. Let me also acknowledge my professors who have passed on to the other side. Because of work obligations over the past few years, I missed memorials that were held here for them. Professor Al Freeman Jr., Professor Mike Malone, Professor Reggie Ray, Dr. Henrietta Edmonds, Professor Joe Selman, Dr. Johnson, and Dr. Singleton. Professors and instructors that may be present: George Epteen, Tony Starnes, Denise Saunders, Professor Roberts Williams, and Professor Vera Katz. Your lessons continue to guide and enlighten me to this day. To President Wayne Frederick and the Board of Trustees, thank you for bringing me back here and giving me this distinguished award. It's overwhelming to be recognized amongst this year's other honorees. I can think of no better place to be right now after the Black Panther and Avengers campaign pains than to return and participate in these graduation ceremonies with you. It is a great privilege, graduates, to address you on your day, a day marking one of the most important accomplishments of your life to date. This is a magical place, a place where the dynamics of positive and negative seem to exist in extremes. I remember walking across this yard on what seemed to be a random day, my head down, lost in my own world of issues like many of you do daily. I'm almost at the center of the yard, I raise my head and Muhammad Ali was walking towards me. Time seemed to slow down as his eyes locked on mine and opened wide. He's raised his fist into a quintessential guard. I was game to play along with him, to act as if I was a worthy opponent. What an honor to be challenged by the GOAT, the greatest of all time, for a brief moment. His face was as serious as if I were Frazier in the Thriller in Manila. His movements His movements were flashes of a past greater than I can imagine. His security let the joke play along for a second before they ushered him away. And I walked away floating like a butterfly. I walked away amused at him, amused at myself, amused at life for this moment that almost no one would ever believe. I walked away light, ready to take on the world. That is the magic of this place. Almost anything can happen here. HU! You know! Howard University. I was riding here and I heard on the radio somebody call it Wakanda University. University. But it has many names: the Mecca, the Hilltop. It only takes one hour, one tour of the physical campus to understand why we call it the Hilltop. Every day is leg day here. That's why some of you have cars. During my junior and My senior years, I lived in a house off campus at Bryant Street. For those of you— that's right, Bryant Street. For those of you who don't know what that means, that's at the bottom of the hill where the incline gets real. Almost every day, I would walk the full length of the hill to Fine Arts, where most of my classes were, carrying all of my books because once you walk that far on foot, you're not walking back home until it's time to go home for good. But beyond the physical campus, the Hilltop represents the culmination of the intellectual and spiritual journey you have undergone while you were here. You have been climbing this academic slope for at least 3 or 4 years. For some of you, maybe even a little bit more. Throughout ancient times, institutions of learning have been built on top of hills to convey that great struggle is required to achieve degrees of enlightenment. Each of you had your own unique difficulties with the hill. For some of you, the challenge was actually academics. When you hear the words magna cum laude, cum laude, you know that's, that's not you. That's not you. You worked hard, you did your best, but you didn't make A's or B's, sometimes C's. You never made the Dean's List, but that's okay. You're here on top of the hill. And I want to say something. To that, you know, sometimes your grades don't, don't, don't, don't give a real indication of what your greatness might be. So it really is okay. For others, it was financial. You and your family struggled to make ends meet every semester of your matriculation. You had to stand in one line to get to another line to get to another line for somebody that might help you. You had to work an extra job or two, but you're here. For a lot of you, not all, but, but a lot of you, your hardest struggle was social. Some of you never fit in. You were never as cool and as popular as you wanted to be, and it bothers you. So your social struggles here became psychological. Even though you made it up the hill, you carry the baggage of rejection with you, but you're here. Or some of you went through something traumatic. You made it to the top of the hill, but, but not without scars and bruises. Some of you fit in too much. You were on the yard rapping on your frat block when you were supposed to be in class. Or you got caught up in the DC party life. I know how that is. I mean, we're right here in the midst of the city. Sometimes you forgot you were in school. You probably could have graduated with honors, but instead Instead, you are getting an "oh yeah" degree today. "Oh yeah, I have class." "Oh yeah, I have that paper due." "Oh yeah, I have a final." You were literally too cool for school. You waited until the last minute to do your best work, and it's a wonder that you made it up the hill at all because you carry the baggage of too much acceptance. Most of you graduating here today struggled against one or more of the impediments or obstacles I mentioned in order to reach this hilltop. When completing a long climb, one first experiences dizziness, disorientation, and shortness of breath due to the high altitude. But once you become accustomed to the climb, your mind opens up to the tranquility of the triumph. Oftentimes the mind is flooded with realizations that were for some reason harder to come to when you were at a lower elevation. At this moment, most of you need some realizations because right now you have some big decisions to make. Right now, I urge you in your breath, in your, in your eyes, in your, in your in your consciousness, invest in the importance of this moment and cherish it. I know some of you might have partied last night. You should, you should celebrate, but this moment is also part of that celebration. So savor the taste of your triumphs today. Don't just swallow the moment whole without digesting what has actually happened here. Look down over what you conquered. And appreciate what God has brought you through. Some of you here struggled against the university itself. This year, students protested and took over the A Building, formulated a list of demands, and negotiated with our president and administration to to determine the direction of our institution. It's impressive. Similarly, during my years here at Howard, we also protested and took over the A Building. In order to preserve Howard's alum annual, in order to preserve Howard's annual appropriations from Congress, President H. Patrick Swager decided to reduce the number of colleges at the university. By his plan, engineering would need to merge with architecture, nursing would merge with allied health, and fine arts, my school, would be absorbed by arts and sciences. That's how we saw it, absorbed. For many of us in fine arts, this signaled to us that our curriculums, or the curriculums of students following us, might become watered-down concentrations concentrations. This undermined the very legacy we were proud to be a part of and aimed to continue. The Fine Arts program had produced Phylicia Rashad, Debbie Allen, Isaiah Washington, Richard Wesley, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, just to name a few. We, we felt that Yes, yes, you could go on and on, you could go on and on, you could go on and on. We felt that we could compete with students from Juilliard, NYU, and CalArts as long as we continued to have a concentrated dosage that rivaled a conservatory experience. But without it, although we took over the A building for several days and presented our arguments to President Swaggart and the administration, the schools were still merged. Thus, the current collection or formation of schools exists. That's why I view your recent protest as such an accomplishment for both sides of the debate, student and administration. I didn't come here to take sides. My interest is what's best for the school. A Howard University education is not just about what happens in the classroom, students. In some ways, what, what you were able to do exemplifies some of the skills you learned in the classroom. It takes the education out of the realm of theory and into utility and practice. Practice. Obviously, your organization skills were unprecedented. I'm told that you organized shifts so that you could at least continue some of your classes. We missed all our classes when we were in the A building. And I'm told that through donations, there was always an ample helping of food. I probably ate a slice of pizza during the entirety of our 3-day protest. So your organization and planning was impeccable. You received the majority of your demands, making a significant impact on those who came after you. As is often the case, those that follow most often enjoy the results of the progress you gained. You loved the university enough to struggle with it. Now, I have to ask you that you have to continue to do that. Even now that you received your demands, even if you're walking today, you have to continue to do that. Everything that you fought for was not for yourself. It was for those that come after. You could have been disgruntled and transferred, but you fought to be participants in making this institution the the best that it can be. But I must also applaud President Wayne Frederick and the administration for listening to the students. Your freedom of speech was exercised in a way where you can contribute to this place. It also also shows that you can contribute to the democracy. The administration and the campus police at the time when I was protesting was not nearly as open-minded as this current one. I know this was a difficult time, but because of both of you, I believe Howard is a few steps closer to the actualization of its potential, the potential that many of us have dreamed for it. Students, your protests are also promising because many of you will leave Howard and enter systems and institutions that have a history of discrimination and marginalization. The fact that you have struggled with this university that you love is a sign that you can use your education to improve the world that you are entering. I was on a roll When I entered the system of entertainment, theater, television, and film, in my first New York audition for a professional play, I landed the lead role. From that play, I got my first agent. From that agent, I got an on-screen audition. It was a soap opera. It wasn't Third Watch. It was a soap opera on a major network. I scored that role too. I felt like Mike Tyson when he first came on the scene, knocking out opponents in the first round. With this soap opera gig, I was already promised to make six figures, more money than I had ever seen. I was feeling myself. But once I got the first script, and with soap operas, you very often get the script the night before and you shoot the whole episode in one day. Day with little to no time to prepare. Once I saw the role I was playing, I found myself conflicted. The role wasn't necessarily stereotypical. A young man in his formative years with a violent streak pulled into the allure of gang involvement. That's somebody's real story. Never judge the characters you play. That's what we were always taught. That's the first rule of acting, and any role played honestly can be empowering. But I was conflicted because this role seemed to be wrapped up in assumptions about us as Black folk. The writing failed to search for specificity. Plus, there was barely a glimpse of positivity or talent in the character, barely a glimpse of hope. I would have to make something out of nothing. I was conflicted. Howard had instilled in me a certain amount of pride, and for my taste, this role didn't live up to those standards. It was just my luck that after filming the first 2 episodes, execs of the show called me into their offices and told me how happy they were with my performance. They wanted me to be around for a long time. They said if there was anything that I needed, just let them know. That was my opening. I decided to ask them some simple questions about the background of my character, questions that I felt were pertinent to the plot. Question number 1: Where's my father? The exact answer Well, he left when you were younger. Of course. Okay. Okay. Question number 2: if this script— in this script it alluded to my mother not being equipped to operate as a good parent, so why exactly would my little brother and I have to go into foster care. Matter-of-factly, he answered, "Well, of course, she's on heroin." That could be real, I guess. But I didn't want to assume that's what it was. If we're around here assuming that the black characters in the show are criminals, on drugs, and deadbeat parents, then that would probably be stereotypical, wouldn't it? That word stereotypical lingered. One of the execs pulled out my resume and began studying it. The other exec wore a smile, trying to live up to what they had promised me only a few moments before. "If there's anything you need, just let us know," she said. "As you have seen, things move really fast around here, but we are more than happy to connect you with the writers if you have suggestions." Yeah, I said, that would be great, I said, because I'm just trying to do my homework on this. I didn't know if you guys had decided on all the facts, but maybe there's some things we could come up with, some talent or gift that we could build. Maybe he's really good at math or something. He has to be active. I'm doing my best not to play this character like a victim. So you went to Howard University, huh, the exec? The man holding my resume interrupted, peeking over the pages. "Yes," I said proudly. He slid my resume back in his desk and said, "Thank you for your concerns. We'll be watching you." I left the office. I shot the episode I had come in to shoot on that day, probably the best one I did out of the 3 because I got what was bothering me off my chest. I was let go from that job on the next day. A cold phone call from my agent. They decided to go another way. The questions that I asked set the producers on guard and perhaps paved the way for a less stereotypical portrayal for the black actor that stepped into the role after me. As the scripture says, I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it, but God kept growing. God kept it growing. Yet and still, when you invest in a seed, watching it grow without you, that is a bitter pill to swallow. A bitter pill. Anybody that's ever been fired knows what I'm talking about. Even if you really don't want the job, when they let you go It's like any breakup. You act like you don't care. I didn't need that damn job anyway. I didn't need them. But when you have those moments alone, you start to wonder if there was a better way to handle it, and if you could have handled it better, maybe you could help your family. And then before you know it, you're broke, and you find yourself scraping together change just so you can ride the subway. So that you can get the next job. And maybe if you could book something else, that would eclipse the feeling of doubt that's building. But it seems like you can't pay them to hire you now. My agents at the time told me it might be a while before I got a job acting on screen again. Well, that was fine because I never wanted to act in the first place. I— and I definitely didn't want to be caught dead going after a fake Hollywood pipe read. I'm more of a writer-director anyway, so forget their stories. I can tell my own stories. But am I actually blackballed? We're hesitant about sending you out to some people right now because there is a stigma that you're difficult. As conflicted as I was before I lost the job, as adamant as I was was about the need to speak truth to power. I found myself even more conflicted afterwards. I stand here today knowing that my Howard University education prepared me to play Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and T'Challa. But what do you do when the principles and standards that were instilled in you here at Howard close the doors in front of you. Sometimes you need to get knocked down before you can really figure out what your fight is and how you need to fight it. At some point, my mind reverted back to my experiences here, to the professors that challenged me and struggled against me. Professor Roberts-Williams, Doc Singleton, George Epting, to name a few, the ones that would fail you out of the goodness of their hearts. And this may be hard to grasp for some of you right now, but I even considered President Swaggart and how negotiating with him was practice for a world that was considerably more cruel and unforgiving than any debate here, one that had no interest in my ideals and beliefs. How would I maneuver through all of this? Finally, I thought of Ali in the middle of the yard in his elder years, drawing from his victories and his losses. At that moment, I realized something new about this— the greatness of Ali and how he carried his crown. I realized that he was transferring something to me on that day. He was transferring the spirit of the fighter in me. He was transferring the spirit of the fighter to me. He was transferring the spirit of the fighter to me. Sometimes you need to feel the pain and sting of defeat to activate the real passion and purpose that God predestined inside of you. God says in Jeremiah, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not plans for you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Graduating class, hear me well on this day. When you— this day when you have reached the hilltop and you are deciding on next jobs, next steps, careers, further education, you would rather find purpose than a job or career. Purpose crosses disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill. Whatever you choose for a career path, remember the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose. When I dared to challenge the system that would relegate us to victims and stereotypes with no clear historical backgrounds, no hopes or talents, when I questioned that method of portrayal, a different path opened up for me. The path to my destiny. When God has something for you, it doesn't matter who stands against it. God will move someone that's holding you back away from a door and put someone there who will open it for you. If it's meant for you— I don't know what your future is, but if you're willing to take the harder way the more complicated one, the one with more failures at first than successes, the one that has ultimately proven to have more meaning, more victory, more glory, then you will not regret it. Now, this is your time. The light of new realization shines on you today. Howard's legacy is not wrapped up in the money that you will make, but the challenges that you choose to confront. As you commence to your paths, press on with pride and press on with purpose. God bless you. I love you, Howard. Howard forever.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and above all, graduates. The first thing I would like to say is thank you. Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honor, but the The weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation. Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners, and convince myself that I am at the world's largest Griffin Door reunion. Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought, until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. You see, if all you remember in years to come is the gay wizard joke joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals, the first step to self-improvement. Actually, I have racked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what What important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this? I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called real life, I want to to extol the crucial importance of imagination. These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me. Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself and what those closest to me expected of me. I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever was write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension. I know the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil now. So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree. I wanted to study English literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study modern languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor. I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics. They might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom. Now I would like to make it clear in parenthesis that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools. What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty but failure. At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the too much time at the coffee bar writing stories and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that for years had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers. Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well-educated, you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well acquainted with failure. You might be driven driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far removed from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown. Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere 7 years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me and that I had had for myself had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew. Now, I'm not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairytale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged. I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized and I was still alive and I still had a daughter whom I adored and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. 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. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will and more discipline than I had suspected. I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of of rubies. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are ever after secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself or the strength of your relationships until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned. So given a time turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone's has total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes. Now, you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African Research Department of Amnesty International's headquarters in London. There in my little office, I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten eyewitness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes. Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes or fled into exile because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information or to try and find out what had happened to those who they had left behind. I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon upon him. He was a foot taller than I was and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the underground station afterwards, and this man, whose life had been shattered by cruelty, took my hand with exquisite courtesy and wished me future happiness. And as long as I live, I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing from behind a closed door a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed. Every day of my working week in my early 20s, I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was to live in a country with a democratically elected government where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone. Every day I saw more evidence about the evils of the horrors humankind would inflict on their fellow humans to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read. And yet, I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before. Amnesty mobilizes the thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy leading to collective action saves lives and frees prisoners. Ordinary people whose personal well-being and security are assured join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life. Unlike any other creature on this planet, human beings can learn and understand without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's places. Of course, this is a power like my brand of fictional magic. That is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate or control just as much as to understand or sympathize. And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or peer inside cages. They can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally. They can refuse to know. I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters, for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy. One of the many things I learned at the end of that classic school corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18 in search of something I could not then define was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." That is an astonishing statement, and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses in part our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing. But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received give you unique, unique status and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege and your burden. If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who those who have no voice, if you choose to identify not only with the powerful but with the powerless, if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better. I'm nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of real trouble. People who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation, we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and of course by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister. So today I wish you nothing better than similar friendships, and tomorrow I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I I met when I fled down the Classics corridor in retreat from career ladders in search of ancient wisdom. As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be.

Believe. To watch the speech that no one wants to hear, check the video right there next to me.

I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

Before April 1954, the common belief, the universal belief, because it had been tried again and again and again and people had failed—

the belief was that man was not physically capable