The Arts world delivers again. Here are examples of commencement speeches I found to be both inspiring and memorable. True, sometimes authors might not have the best speech delivery style but, oh, the stories they tell, the places they’ve been… it will make you ask for more. Enjoy these samples of commencement speeches from the Arts arena.
J.K. Rowling
Commencement Speech at Harvard University, 2008
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.
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Sue Monk Kidd
Commencement Address at Scripps College, 2010
Go make your beautiful dent, and as you do so come down on the side of boldness. If you err, may it be for too much audacity, and not too little. For you really are enough. You have untold strengths and resources inside. You have your glorious self.
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Anna Quindlen
Commencement Address at Villanova University, 2000
It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes…. It is so easy to exist instead of live.
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David Foster Wallace
Commencement Address at Kenyon College, 2005
Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.
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Susan-Lori Parks
Graduation Commencement Address at Mount Holyoke, 2001
You can spend your life tripping on yourself, you can also spend your life tripping yourself up. Get out of your own way.
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Doug Marlette
Commencement Address at Wesleyan University, 2005
Above all, remember: You are not your resume. External measures won’t repair you. Money won’t fix you. Applause, celebrity, no number of victories will do it. The only honor that counts is that which you earn and that which you bestow. Honor yourself.
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Anne Lamott
Commencement Address at University of California at Berkeley, 2003
So from the wise old pinnacle of my 49 years, I want to tell you that what you’re looking for is already inside you.
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Yvonne Thorton
Commencement Address at University of Tuskegee 2003
Don’t let anyone define who you are… What you can conceive in you mind, believe in your heart, you can achieve with your efforts! Nothing is impossible! It’s just the degree of difficulty!
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Neil Gaiman
Commencement Address at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, 2012
And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for you being here. Make good art.
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George Saunders
Commencement Address at Syracuse University, 2013
Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike.
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